Abstract
It has been frequently noted that 2015's general election will be unlike any other in recent memory The rise of the smaller parties and the state of the polls seem likely to produce a campaign that may be nasty, possibly brutish but certainly not short. For the parties, the starting gun was fired in January. For the broadcasters, too, this will be a campaign unlike any other – and not just because of the politics. The BBC's director general, Lord Hall, has already told his staff this is a high-risk period for the future of the corporation. But all broadcasters need to prove their relevance in this campaign.
In the past, the mass reach of television – and to a lesser extent radio – meant broadcasting was the natural place for the campaign to be fought: daily news conferences, battle bus tours of picture opportunities and, at one point, half-hour one-to-one interviews with the party leaders in prime time.
Now we have the prospect of election debates – and the negotiating mess that preceded them – but in other ways TV seems less relevant than before. Ofcom and BBC rules on balance between major and minor parties seem increasingly to distort coverage, forcing multiple “image bites” against the flow of news, and at least four party positions into a three-minute package.
TV audiences are lower, politics is herded to the fringes of the schedule and social media has challenged the broadcasters' place in driving the daily conversation. Now, the parties seek to bypass the media and go straight to the online public; newspapers, once shut out of the hourly news cycle, can now intervene online on a minute-by-minute basis.
A politician's unguarded slip is less likely to take place on TV, with heavily rehearsed soundbites and positioning, and more likely to appear as a “Thornberry moment” on Twitter, where an unthinking reference can reveal what lies behind the political façade. Although most voters are not on Twitter, the politicians and media are – so that's where stories, rows, slips and accusations can brew. It's a hot house for negative campaigning.
And all parties are attempting to learn from the social media success of Barack Obama's campaigns – reaching key voters in marginals on key issues. Tighter and tighter targeting with doorstep politics in key seats are back in fashion. National polls – a staple of campaign reporting – may tell us less this year than in the past.
In a febrile campaign, who will shape the conversation? The parties are armed with manifesto promises, run through day-by-day campaign grids, have rapid-rebuttal teams, strategies to highlight opponents weaknesses and are well rehearsed on what they want to say – and, just as importantly, what they don't want to say. The broadcasters too will have their plan for what issues to cover, with strategies for breaking through the spin and rhetoric to reveal the weaknesses or strengths of what lies underneath.
In this campaign, they will need more confidence and robustness than ever to withstand the parties' assaults. Twenty years ago, a TV news editor could expect a hot call from party HQ mid-bulletin or just after with shouting, threats and cajoling. Those still happen, but today the parties try to delve deeper into the editorial process behind a broadcast to declare it unfair or unreasonable. This potentially ties up programme and management time when it is most needed. Someone arguing or shouting abuse is one thing. Questioning the legitimacy of how you do your job is quite another.
The fashion in political broadcasting is shifting from the heat of confrontational interviews to generating light through explanation. Think Evan Davies rather than Jeremy Paxman. The confrontational technique has become tired, with political defences built higher than ever. The more open approach, on the other hand, risks being steamrollered by the political machine.
The broadcasters are seasoned, having gone through last year's Scottish referendum, which one senior executive described to me as “worse than anything they could recall” in terms of political and internal pressures. With no clear leader in the polls, polarising parties and issues such as membership of the EU, the future of the NHS and deep public spending cuts at stake, they should prepare for something worse still. It is the price of working in a regulated medium with an audience of millions. No newspaper editor has to tolerate the kind of pressure broadcasters face.
Where are the public in all this? Surveys suggest their trust in politicians and the political process is flatlining. So is their trust in most media – although the BBC remains popular. The public simply don't believe politicians speak honestly They see politics as an obsessive, insider occupation focusing on tactics to try to deliver a government with about a third of the vote.
And negative campaigning compounds the problem. David Cameron says Labour won't mention the deficit. Labour says the Tories won't mention health. The public say “who cares?”
Here is the opportunity for broadcasters. They need to double up on the public interest and seek to represent the agenda of voters rather than politicians. Yes, they must report how the parties wish to campaign, but they must go beyond that in the interests of the public. They should invest in the data analysis that will reveal the reality behind partial statistics; provide greater context and analysis to unpack the day's issues; report from the ground independently of the campaigns; and pursue the issues politicians wish to bypass.
Equally, they should separate from the rest of the media herd. If a significant portion of the BBC's political agenda is set by the press, why have a licence fee?
In this campaign more than most, the broadcasters must demonstrate their independence and their relevance to the voters – finding and connecting to the issues that matter in communities rather than party headquarters.
The stakes for TV news channels are high. They have to withstand possibly brutal levels of political pressure, understand and interpret the most complex campaign for decades, reinvent their approach to campaign reporting and adopt the new strengths of digital media while differentiating themselves from the crowd.
And by so doing, they need to demonstrate clearly to the public that broadcasting is as relevant today as in the elections of the past and deserves their trust and loyalty. It's there to be won, but not easily.