General Election Thread

Well, I'm going on what he told me, as I said. His words were 'we can't afford to get it wrong because the BBC and ITN are using us on election night for their results'.

My feeling was that they were likely to be talking about the website side of things primarily, as that's how Dod's is run, and I too would be surprised, like I said, if this went as far as broadcast stuff.

I don't like the practice ITV have of early declarations. Officially the agents are informed of the result before the candidates, once all the papers are counted, but that's just to get them on stage. No real problem reporting the news once that is given to the agents, but it's a risky business unless you're in a blindingly obvious safe seat to predict the outcome of the result based on early returns.

Not surprised Sky tried the student route and I suspect it will work for them. Will be very interesting to see how the speed of the results goes, it has pretty much always gone ITV, BBC, Sky, with a good fifteen/twenty mins between the winning post being reached on each.

Remember in 2001 someone on Sky (possibly Adam Boulton) getting very irate when an interviewee said 'well ITN say we've already won' and launching into a tirade about how wrong it was for ITN to use unofficial declarations.

If you don't like the practice you've got Sky or the BBC to go to then. Election night is all about making calls IMO and it's rather dull if they wait for everything to be confirmed - it keeps each channel on it's toes if people are trying to get in first.

However, with the election looking to be a close run thing this year (though Cameron's tactical baby making seems to have boosted the Tories in the polls this week) I imagine the broadcasters will take a very cautious approach this year.

Back in 1992 when Kinnock was expected to win did any broadcaster actually call a Labour victory at the beginning of their broadcast?

Rather dull?

I'd rather have a 'rather dull' broadcast than an inaccurate one - and ITV makes a fair few corrections throughout the night thanks to it's rushing to judgement.

Election night isn't about keeping news channels on their toes, it's about reporting accurately and responsibly the outcome of the biggest political event in this country.

Why don't you go and talk to some of the executive producers behind the US TV networks' coverage of the 2000 Presidential Election. I'm sure they'll have opinions about making calls before official declarations, just for the sake of getting one over on their competitors!

For my job, I need to know details of individual results just as much as I need to know the universal picture. So ITV reporting seats inaccurately - AS THEY DID LAST TIME - would be horrific viewing.

In 1992 nobody reported a Kinnock win because the exit polls said a hung parliament. The entire 1992 election broadcast is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z08foh7ExcE&feature=player_embedded



This is all irrelevant anyway. The internet will be first.

I think more to the point is that, other than us, if you're watching election night coverage then you stick with one broadcaster so it doesn't really matter who is "first" because it's not like you can predict when seats will be called, only a rough idea once counting has finished where you've got a reporter to tell you.

Speculation about seats is best left to the internet blogs, certainly not a broadcaster on election night. Of what little coverage I caught, ITV's did look a little embarassing as they were having to recall what was being said and admit that they called too early and got it wrong.

I once went to a talk at Red Bee about the back-end system they developed to run the BBC Sport graphics. It's a big database that takes in the PA goals feed (network-delivered XML files), and sticks it into a database, which is then plumbed into the graphics system, and can produce a multitude of different tables - or the Videprinter - on demand.
Because PA goal flashes can take a few minutes to come through, spotters at the important matches can call through goals before the PA updates hit the system, and it's sensible enough to ignore the duplicate PA flash when it eventually arrives.

Perhaps they'll use something similar for the election - spotters at the key counts, and rely on the Dods feed for the rest.

There is nothing to be embarrassed about if they correct any incorrect forecasts throughout the night and make viewers aware of what's going on throughout the night. As I said, if you don't like such forecasts you can change channel, but just as with rolling news as long as they make their sources clear and update information as the facts come in, it's absolutely fine. If it was all left down to the BBC, we'd still be waiting for confirmation about whether Michael Jackson is dead.

Don't know if they told you that, but it's not unusual. Election nights have long been a nice little pay-day for journalism students, and not just at Sky.

If anything, last time around, the ITV programme seemed a lot duller than the other two to me - part of calling the counts earlier was linked with a lot fewer declarations screened live, and that is where the atmosphere and excitement came from. The flip side is that they ended up with a lot more studio discussion.

On the other hand, I think there were only one or two corrections.

You do talk some utter tripe sometimes.

Yes, but that Michael Jackson quip was quite funny. And besides, I think congratulations might be in order after a certain letter was printed in this morning's Media Guardian.

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