X marks the spot

Anyone who tells you that digital journalism has sounded the death knell for public-interest journalism clearly hasn’t spent enough time in front of a Chartbeat dashboard on election night (or on the day when a big planning application is discussed, for that matter). Tut-tut about newsroom analytics as much as you like, but they tell us that people want to read about the results.

In local newsrooms – virtual or face-to-face these days – local election night has taken on a Transfer Deadline Day air as journalists rush to break snaps and insight from counting halls. Long lists of results, a source of “must do” monotony in the days when the next print edition was the priority, are proving to be of huge interest to readers for days and weeks after.

But why is there so much more interest in the results than in voting? I’m writing this on local election polling day, some six months after Salford hit a new low in voter turnout for a council by-election. Last November, when the voters of Blackfriars and Trinity ward were offered the chance to choose a new councillor, just 788 of the 7,875 who could vote made it to the ballot box.

The continual decline in getting people to the polls poses a significant threat to local journalism. Why? Because voter apathy shows a disconnect between the voter (our reader) and their role in civic life. And once readers feel disconnected from local civic life, misinformation can flourish at the expense of journalism. I see this every week in my local Facebook groups. I live in Lancashire, still served/blighted by a two-tier council structure. Regularly, the local Labour borough council takes a kicking on Facebook because of something which is the fault of the Tory-run county council. Such a basic lack of understanding of how services are provided speaks to a prevailing sense that the council is a thing which exists, but a thing you have no say over. So why bother voting?

This creates a world in which it becomes easier for councils, and councillors, to dodge scrutiny by us, local journalists, if they wish to. They can disparage and dismiss headlines they are unhappy with on social media, or publish “news” online on websites which look distinctly like regular news sites, only aren’t. Civic life is much the worse for it.

Somehow, we’ve ended up in a world where local election night (and following day, for those spoilsport councils that insist on counting votes during daylight hours) has taken on an X-Factor Final quality where people want to know the winners but aren’t really interested in the earlier rounds. To an extent, our industry is responsible for this.

A huge part of the problem faced by local journalists is the insistence of our profession, and national politicians, on treating local elections as proxy referenda for the state of Westminster politics. We’re supposed to remind Westminster it’s not all about them – not encourage that belief. This reached an absurd crescendo over news of Boris Johnson’s Partygate fine (it is just the one at time of writing), when Tory MPs briefed the Sunday nationals that Johnson was safe “because of Ukraine” before pausing and adding: “Let’s see how the local elections go.” So Boris could stand shoulder to shoulder with Kyiv, unless the Tories lost Wandsworth? Really?

Labour were just as bad, with adverts saying that [insert name of place] deserved better than a government which had caused a cost of living crisis. That may be so, but voting for Labour in Chorley Council’s elections has no bearing on that. Equally, it was simply absurd to see Labour arguing that [name of place] deserved better, even in areas where Labour already ran the council that was up for election. If Labour was fighting local elections on local lines, that simply would not have happened.

Sir John Curtice, the turn-to authority on polling in the UK, summed it up when asked on Times Radio, five days out from the polls, what significance should be attached to this year’s local elections for the Government. “The significance,” he replied, “will always be in the eye of the beholder, or analyst.” He’s right – and the answer should be none at all.

Local elections should be about local issues. For as long as we in the media play to and promote the Westminster desire to make local elections about them, rather than their local candidates, there will be little incentive to vote – and no real incentive to get out on the campaign trail as a candidate either.

It’s not uncommon not to hear from your councillor once elected. It’s also quite likely you’ll go through a whole election campaign without hearing from those who are standing. How can you be expected to vote if no one tries to win your vote? Defaulting to party lines is damaging and corrosive for local democracy, and local communities, and creates a vocal tribalism which can often care little for accurate, honest local journalism.

It also risks letting in extreme politicians. I saw this with my own eyes in the 2000s in Lancashire when the BNP – who didn’t try that hard to hide their racist beliefs – began winning seats in the county, largely because they did things the old-fashioned way. They got out and spoke to people and leafleted like it was going out of fashion. Which, as it turns out, it had.

Candidates from established parties were furious, blaming everyone but themselves. Fortunately, the BNP flame died quickly, extinguished by scrutiny from the local media, and normal service was resumed. It should never have happened, of course. And the had local democracy functioned the way it should have done, with local elections fought on local issues and councillors staying in touch all term long, then the BNP wouldn’t have won.

We are now in a peculiar place where I can see from audience metrics that lots of people want to read about local elections, and local council matters, but don’t want to go and vote when they get the chance. It’s in our gift to change that, but we can only do it if we insist on our politicians treating local elections for what they are – local elections. In the 2022 elections, it feels we’ve moved further away from that simple premise than ever before. Local communities, and local journalism, suffers as a result.

David Higgerson