Deputy Political Editor of the Financial Times and Political Editor of the Guardian
Interview with Elizabeth Rigby Chair of the Parliamentary Press Lobby and Deputy Political Editor of the FT and Patrick Wintour, Political Editor of the Guardian .
As described by the depositor:
Elizabeth told us: “This is a very tight election and both sides are very nervous that any gaffe or mistake can swing the polls, so they are running a very, very tight contained and controlled Election. They don’t want journalists causing trouble and pulling people off message. They really want to avoid the sort of blow ups that walkabouts can create. They have intense media scrutiny, Twitter, Facebook, BuzzFeed, you have the national newspapers all with their online operations, you have 24 hour news channels. With so many media outlets it is very difficult to control the message, so all the political parties have responded by trying to control access.
“Stories come on Twitter and disappear within a few hours. As journalists we try and step back and give our readers an intelligent distilled version of the “noise”. It is important to step back from Twitter and the daily thrust of a campaign, and convey to our readers the big themes and say these are the things that matter and that you need to know.”
Patrick told us: “Most leaders travel by train or helicopter, the battle buses are left over from a different era that they pretend to be involved with. And the same thing with rallies, David Cameron on an industrial estate rally recently was basically him in a corner of an industrial estate with broadly about 50 people there. The photos on TV looked as if a large number of people were there, but they are all artificial.
“I have about 38 or 39000 followers on Twitter. I was forced to Tweet by the paper at a G8 Summit in London and I was really cross about it. I thought this was a ridiculous format to try and explain in the number of characters you had (140) what was going on at the G8, which was very complicated with the collapse of the World economy, and I didn’t tweet for many years afterwards.
“My front page lead today about the Coalitions proposed £8 billion of welfare cuts, came about because somebody I know trusted me, and told me. Twitter is a fantastic source of stories but if you don’t have friendships and loyalties as a political journalist you are not going to get big stories really.”
As described by the depositor:
Elizabeth told us: “This is a very tight election and both sides are very nervous that any gaffe or mistake can swing the polls, so they are running a very, very tight contained and controlled Election. They don’t want journalists causing trouble and pulling people off message. They really want to avoid the sort of blow ups that walkabouts can create. They have intense media scrutiny, Twitter, Facebook, BuzzFeed, you have the national newspapers all with their online operations, you have 24 hour news channels. With so many media outlets it is very difficult to control the message, so all the political parties have responded by trying to control access.
“Stories come on Twitter and disappear within a few hours. As journalists we try and step back and give our readers an intelligent distilled version of the “noise”. It is important to step back from Twitter and the daily thrust of a campaign, and convey to our readers the big themes and say these are the things that matter and that you need to know.”
Patrick told us: “Most leaders travel by train or helicopter, the battle buses are left over from a different era that they pretend to be involved with. And the same thing with rallies, David Cameron on an industrial estate rally recently was basically him in a corner of an industrial estate with broadly about 50 people there. The photos on TV looked as if a large number of people were there, but they are all artificial.
“I have about 38 or 39000 followers on Twitter. I was forced to Tweet by the paper at a G8 Summit in London and I was really cross about it. I thought this was a ridiculous format to try and explain in the number of characters you had (140) what was going on at the G8, which was very complicated with the collapse of the World economy, and I didn’t tweet for many years afterwards.
“My front page lead today about the Coalitions proposed £8 billion of welfare cuts, came about because somebody I know trusted me, and told me. Twitter is a fantastic source of stories but if you don’t have friendships and loyalties as a political journalist you are not going to get big stories really.”