I was going to do this as one post but I think that I’m going to split it into two. The second will look at new media styles of reporting (read: hyperlocal), but this part looks at how the traditional local media might cover the local elections. That said, upon reading back, it serves more as a description of the current context. I don’t feel like I’m explaining anything new, but these is my own thoughts, which are of particular interest to me at the moment given my dissertation topic. If I feel odd after posting it, I might try and expand on it or delete altogether. I don’t think my brain functions well on Saturday evenings.
Anyway…
General elections usually provide an absolute goldmine of news for the local media. Political candidates of all parties will be on the campaign trail and always eager to give good soundbites to make themselves come across as someone you want to vote for. This is also ample opportunity for the local newspapers to absolutely fill their pages with nothing else other than news of the campaign. Anything that is meaningless gets pushed aside because of the amount of news stories you could run on something as long-lasting as a general election.
At least, this is the theory. My fear however is that the press won’t be able to provide a comprehensive coverage of what is going on. There are two reasons for this:
- The amount of people in the local newsroom is far lower than what should be sufficient. These remaining journalists are put under a daily pressure to get as many stories as possible in order to fill up space in the paper, and most of the time theses stories fall under the ‘churnalism’ bracket – creating news stories out of pre-packaged materials like press releases and such. That’s why they didn’t put MPs under intense scrutiny when the MPs expenses scandal happened. A golden opportunity was missed.
- The communication between newsrooms and the community has shrunk. Of course, this is a generalisation and there are some exceptions to the rule (not to mention exceptional circumstances), but on the whole, if you compared things now to a time that was pre-internet then you’ll find that the difference is astonishing. Back in the day, both entities relied on each other to make sure that the community knew what was going on in the area – almost like a partnership.
I mean, for all I know, I could be proven entirely wrong. I would quite like to be proven wrong. I would quite like to be told that local newspapers can still seize on major news events. However, I think this year the local election news won’t be discovered in the local newspapers, but through newer news-gathering methods, which will be explained in the second post.
