Regional press coverage of the forthcoming election campaign could be decisive in almost 200 marginal seats, the chairman of the Newspaper Conference has claimed.
Annabelle Dickson, who serves as political editor for the Eastern Daily Press and East Anglian Daily Times, made the claim speaking at a debate on local media and the election.
At Monday’s event, sponsored by JICREG, Annabelle told the audience that the “hundreds of marginal constituencies” are where the election will be won and lost, making local media more influential than ever before.
Her comments come after Johnston Press chief executive Ashley Highfield warned in a BBC TV appearance that politicians who “underestimate” the power of the local media in an election year could face “disastrous consequences”.
Annabelle, pictured above left, said: ““If we take seats with majorities of 10 per cent or less that require a swing of five per cent for the incumbent party to lose, then there are currently 194 such marginal seats in Britain.
“So it is local campaigns that are going to matter, and by definition the local media covering these battles on a daily or weekly basis.”
As well as chairing the Conference, made up of London-based correspondents of regional press titles, Archant announced earlier this month that Annabelle would be heading up a specialist elections unit to share ideas and resources across the company’s titles ahead of 7 May.
She added: “With political disillusionment about politics at an all time high, people who want to vote are likely to turn to the questions of who their candidate is and what they stand for.
“The MP who has been publicly speaking out about a lost service could well get votes to take them over their line, even if their party leader is not deemed flavour of the month. So that is why political parties know that they ignore the local media at their peril.
“From the Western Morning News in Land’s End to the John o Groats Journal – what people read, watch, listen to locally, will help them to understand more about how national policy will apply to local issues that matter to them, and who their candidates are, as they decided where to put their cross on 7 May.”
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From experience, most local weekly papers barely cover elections, beyond giving each candidate 200 words to sell themselves. Can’t imagine that will make much difference. Hopefully dailies do a better job of reporting the whole campaign as it unfolds.
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I fear Annabelle is somewhat over estimating the influence local papers have when it comes to General Elections. After all – and I say this with great sadness – the vast majority of people no longer read their local paper.
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No chance
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Delusional. Must be thinking of at least 10 years ago.
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By way it is Highfield not Higfield .Judging by errors in his papers doubt if JP staff noticed.
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The UKIP candidates in Lincolnshire are doing a fine job at keeping the Tories on their toes.
As for the Lib-Dems and Labour, they are nowhere, hopeless even.
The JP papers I work for will be strictly neutral, but in the two horse races we have, I expect coverage will depend on who is the most media savvy and who supplies the stories that need little work.
Certainly the UKIP candidate in my constituency was able to drop all and come running this morning for a photo-op and few quotes about a local issue.
My colleague on a sister paper has a UKIP candidate who is a leading county councillor and is a fountain of knowledge and stories, which has gained him much coverage.
Don’t be too surprised if there are surprises in Lincolnshire.
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Neutrality was always the election stance of papers for which I worked, making for banal coverage. Conservative, Labour, Monster Raving Looney Party … all got their bios and 200 words’ policy printed. Readers tended to go with the national flow. I never felt we influenced their decision-making. Still, the reward for staying up all night to report the result (in those pre-Internet days) was often a decent sale. Do local papers carry more clout today? I suspect not.
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***coughs*** BU###HIT! ***coughs***
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Coverage on weeklies will depend on which party sends out the most press releases ready to be dropped into a pre-formed shape by a young hack with little local political knowledge or interest. In most cases.
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I can only assume that Annabel has not seen the sales figures for the EDP,EN and weeklies which if she cares to look or is brave enough to break the omertà levied on Archants record low copy sales figures she would see that they don’t have anywhere near enough readers to be of any influence, be worth her asking the IU to invrstigate and plot the sales figures by title going back 4-8 years to see just how far the sales have crashed, back then she would have had a point
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