Media Law, Lecture 8: Reporting on Elections

This is the blog post I was looking forward to the most as it is the area of media law where I hopefully will be having to covering the most, reporting on elections. As Political Editor of WINOL, I have encountered the rules and regulations of reporting elections for the last six month during my coverage of the Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner elections.

The role saw we have to interview each of the six candidates and host a live debate at The University of Winchester, produced and broadcasted live online by the WINOL team. This was unlike a General Election where you give balance over time to the three main political parties (Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats) and a smaller party if they have a chance of winning the seat. The Hampshire Police Commissioner election was the first of it's kind, therefore I had to give equal balance for each candidate and had to ensure that I remained impartial throughout the process of reporting on the election.

Under the Representation of the People Act, as a broadcast journalist, during election season we have to remain impartial throughout as journalism is seen as the fourth estate and we have to ensure that we do not broadcast and bias towards the viewer as it may swing or affect the outcome of a election. Because the public are the ones who will be voting and deciding the outcome, the HPCC election was different as I had to get in contact with each of the candidates and ensured that they were interviewed to keep balance over time.

This was achieved to a extent where I interviewed five out of the six candidates. But, the sixth candidate who could not be interviewed at the time, due to a ongoing police investigation involving allegations made against him, I instead interviewed a Conservative MP in his place who expressed his support during the interview grab. This I checked with my News Editor and he was happy as I had profiled all candidate and gave them all equal billing. I was happy with the overall result as it was similar practice to what you would see at BBC, ITN or Sky.

Then the second job was the hosting of a live debate, chaired by BBC South's Home Affairs Correspondent, Alex Forsyth and streamed live by WINOL. The debate had a"Question Time" style format with each candidate having 90 second opening and closing statement and a 60 minute Q & A session with selected questions from members of the audience. This again had to be strictly abided to ensure that there was no undue prominence and that every candidate had the same amount of time to broadcast their views to the audience.

This again had to abided to strictly and this meant that for some questions only a few candidate could answer and this meant that the other candidate would have their opportunity in the next questions. It was difficult to ensure that everyone had a fair and equal chance. I also ensured that there was a short time delay on the stream to ensure that if anything was said that could have been seen as defamatory to a extent where privilege would not have saved us in court, I had the chance to pull the plug on the stream. This was not needed and I feel that my overall presentation of the election coverage showed balance, impartiality and was unbiased  Therefore, from a legal aspect of reporting on election, I did not make a wrong turn and it was good practice for the future as I know the laws that I have to follow.

Newspapers have a different set of rules to follow than broadcasters as they do not have to remain impartial and can side with one political party during their election campaign. This has been seen across history that with paper that swing to the left (The Guardian, The Mirror) will also support Labour during a election campaign and newspapers that are right-wing (The Daily Mail, The Daily Torygraph) support the Conservatives.  It shows that historically certain papers have decided the outcome of a election, this none more so than The Sun. The Sun has had a history of switching allegiances during General Election, for a party that supported The Conservatives during the Thatcher era and printed the infamous front page on the morning of the 1992 General Election that may have swayed the outcome to The Conservatives. However, when it came to the 1997 General Election the wave of New Labour had swung the allegiance of the paper from blue to red and this remained the case during the 10 years of the Blair era.

I personally think that now the findings of The Leveson report into press standards has been published, it should not been seen that the new regulatory (goodbye PPC) should make law that all newspapers should have the same rules as broadcasters during a election and show balance over time for all the major parties. But, what constitutes a major political party. In England the main three political parties are Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats.

 They are also major parties in Scotland and Wales, but they are joined by each countries nationalist party SNP (Scottish National Party) and Plaid Cymru. Northern Ireland it is slightly different as none of the major political parties from over the Irish Sea contest seats, due to the history of the Norther Ireland peace conflict.

 The Main parties in Northern Ireland are The DUP (Democratic Unionist Party), The Ulster Unionists, Sinn Fein and The Social Democratic and Labour Party. All these parties across The United Kingdom make up and determine the 650 seats in the House of Commons. During the lecture we discussed that not all MP's will play fairly to the rules during a General Election campaign. This was not the case for Phil Wollas, the former Labour MP and Immigration Minister.

 The MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth had held his seat since 1997 and in the 2010 General Election was up against the favoured Liberal Democrat candidate, Elwyn Watkins. In an area already exposed to rows over racism, Wollas published a newsletter that showed that he had received death threats from what he claimed to be Muslim extremists who were plotting to kill him. But, on top of this he accused Elwyn Watkins of supporting the extremists who would vote for her and described it as "a lid dem pact with the devil." Phil Wollas held onto his seat by a minority of 103 votes, but Elwyn Watkins complained and took her case to the courts accusing Wollas of misleading the electorate in order to hold onto his seat that he was on course to lose. The High Court verdict showed that there was no substantial evidence to backup Wollas's claims of Elwyn Watkins links with extremists and overturned the decision of the election. This was the first time something like this has been done for 99 years and in turn Wollas was banned from running for Parliament for three years.

 A more recent case involved the recent Croydon-North by-election. The election that took place this was week was secured a safe Labour hold in the area, but the controversy of the election was marred by the UKIP candidate, Winston McKenzie. McKenzie in a press interview stated that adopting by gay couples is nothing more than "child abuse" and various other homophobic accusations. This luckily did not affect the outcome of the election as McKenzie came third, but it again show legally how careful we have to be with what we report during election as what journalists write can sway outcomes.