Talk About Local unconference 2010: Election coverage discussion
This discussion at yesterday’s Talk About Local un-conference was for bloggers and local websites wanting to report and discuss the imminent UK General Election.
We heard that whereas it used to be the case (in broadcast journalism at least) that each political party had to be given exactly the same coverage, that is no longer the case. If a party has no history of election success, you are quite at liberty not to cover them. Just make sure to list all the candidates who are standing.
It was also agreed that independent reporters should have no extra restrictions for reporting on polling day, although it might be worth trying to get press accreditation.
‘Declaration of Financial Interest’: guideline is apparently now for MPs to make that public, so you can ask if they will give you the same statement that they give to others: they might well see it as in their interest to, particularly in light of the MPs’ expenses scandal.
Useful tools
- TheStraightChoice: uploaded election leaflets
- Get your readers to upload theirs
- Show them interesting stuff that happened as a result
- ElectionChampion: a game to find the election billboards that are springing up around the country
- Democracy Club: ‘working to build the definitive guide to where all candidates stand on major issues, nationwide’.
- yournextmp.com
- The goal is that after the election what the winners said will be compared with their voting record over the next five years.
- OopenlyLocal is/will be offering a pingback thingy (I didn’t hear properly) for bloggers to link to posts about local councillors.
Please remember
This is a report of information from other people at a conference. Therefore I may unintentionally have misunderstood or misrepresented what I heard. Please do not treat anything here as fact: check with a reliable source before, say, putting yourself in danger of defending a libel case.
vCard
Email
Audioboo
Delicious
Flickr
Google
Last.FM
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Twitter