The City of Martinsville recently started a Behind the Badge podcast series on the city’s social media to better engage with residents. The podcast features updates and discussions with Martinsville Police Chief Robert “Rob” Fincher.
Kendall Davis, the city’s Public Information Office (PIO), said Martinsville was looking for ways outside of just having a physical presence to engage with the community on social media.
“The Up To Date podcast that we do just on regular city matters gets a lot of response and views on social media, so we figured that would be a good way to give Fincher an opportunity to talk to the public, inform the public,” Davis said, adding the city also hopes to open communication for residents to submit topics they would like to hear about from the police department.
The first podcast was released on August 29 and focused on the new school zone speed monitoring systems that are in place in every city school zone. It was recorded on August 20, according to Davis, who noted discussions about the podcast began on August 12.
In the few days since the podcast’s first episode aired, Davis described the reception as “good. On social media, we got the views that we expected for the first type of podcast. So far, it’s been good. We just look forward to getting it to be more popular and looking forward to getting more response from the community. The few comments we’ve had on there have been positive.”
Currently, the plan is for a new episode to be released every two weeks, Davis said, adding the plan is to release the second episode during the second week of September. Topics for future episodes include community policing and police academy activities.
“It’s really about things that will be happening, you know, issues or good things that arise throughout the course of in-between the podcasts,” Davis said. The podcast is “really giving him (Fincher) the opportunity to update the community on whether it’s pressing matters or initiatives that are taking place inside of the police department.”
For those who submit topics, “I just want to say that if it’s appropriate, if it’s something that the police can actually talk about, if it’s something that he can actually speak on, then we will” feature it in an upcoming podcast, Davis said.
Submit a topic by emailing Davis at kdavis@martisnvilleva.gov.
