Election special: Are hustings worth the hassle in an age of low voter turnout?
Tomorrow, voters around the UK go the polls in the local elections. Or will they?
Government data suggests during last year’s local elections, voter turnout ranged from a low of 22.8% to a high of 40%. In short, right across the UK, more people aren’t turning out to vote for their local councillors than do.
And that’s despite a decade of new, electable roles such as directly-elected mayors and police and crime commissioners being created to supposedly devolve more power into the hands of local electors.
Which poses the question: How to cover local elections as a newsroom when more of your readers are likely to tune out than tune in when they see stories about polling day?
Birmingham is one of the cities with the added complication of a directly-elected mayor, who sits atop a combined authority. How do you explain that to readers and get them engaged?
Asked how well his readers understand what the West Midlands mayor is there to do, BirminghamLive editor Graeme Brown said: “Not well at all. It’s problematic that the powers, while enhanced, are much less tangible. It doesn’t make for sexy copy really.
“It’s got better, but it’s lots of strategy, lots of funding — more like a beefed-up Local Enterprise Partnership than a beefed-up local authority.
“Our audience is all about “show me, don’t tell me” but often with combined authorities, these things take years to come to fruition.
“Transport is a good example — Andy Street has pushed for more and more train stations and trams in the West Midlands. We’ve seen some cool looking maps but not all the rolling stock. That really isn’t a criticism — this stuff doesn’t happen overnight.
“I think another problem with the mayor is the lack of proper opposition. Other than for the few months leading up, the only people religiously listening to what the mayor says are journalists.”
Hustings — bringing the candidates standing for election together to debate the issues — is one way a lot of newsrooms try to spark interest in local elections.
Graeme added: “Our people and politics editor Jane Haynes and I talked through what we wanted to get out of it. The priority was for our hustings to be the most inclusive.
“There has been a few — mostly head-to-head between the incumbent Conservative candidate and the Labour opposition.
“We decided to bring together all six candidates. This actually probably makes it less gripping for us but more useful for undecided voters.
“We also decided to make it a Facebook Live event, simulcast across the West Midlands — branded BirminghamLive BlackCountryLive and CoventryLive. This was the route to the largest audience — and 3,000 people watched it.
“A highlight for me was getting each to ask a question of another.
“Of course, by making it a Facebook Live event, we aren’t helping to get eyes on our adverts — but it wasn’t about that for us.
“It was important to show as a brand we took this seriously and, frankly, given the apathy towards the election, important we did all we could do to find the audience.”
If the challenge of engaging people with voting for a role that’s already in existence — and therefore has a record to defend — is hard, what about if it’s a brand new role people are voting for.m
That’s what faced journalists in Nottingham this year where the new role of East Midlands Mayor will be decided tomorrow.
NottinghamshireLive teamed up with NottsTV, a local TV station, to host hustings in a TV studio.
NottinghamshireLive editor Natalie Fahy said: “Sadly, awareness of the new role of East Midlands Mayor is still quite low. People don’t realise the benefits it will bring to our region, giving us a bigger voice and bringing in investment for huge projects.
“We see it as our job to champion the role and bring the candidates to people in an accessible way, which is why we teamed up with Notts TV and Nottingham Trent University to hold a hustings event.
“We can’t just give up on the democratic process because turnout might be low, it’s up to us to break down why this role is important and how it will affect people’s everyday lives.
“We’ll be teaming up with other media in the region soon too to run a “get out and vote” style campaign.”
Reflecting on the event, held last month, Natalie said: “My main takeaway from the event was how well we worked as a trio of organisations, each with our own strengths, to produce a top-class event for the region.
“I think as media organisations we should collaborate more with people in our areas to produce events that benefit the people we serve. The event was viewed by more than 6,000 people across all our platforms (Facebook and website) and 6,000 people watched the programme on Notts TV. Any candidate would struggle to reach that many people in just an hour.”
A third challenge when it comes to covering mayoral elections is if the role is changing. In the North East, the Tyne mayor role is expanding beyond Tyne and Wear to cover Northumberland and Durham — giving titles like ChronicleLive and the Newcastle Journal the task of holding candidates to account while reminding readers of what is going on with the post and the devolution deal which has come with it.
Like other titles, journalists at the Chronicle’s Newcastle newsroom arranged a hustings, which also featured in political newsletter The Northern Agenda’s weekly podcast, as the session was chaired by its editor Rob Parsons.
The election marks a key moment in what The Journal billed as the year of the North East in its January 1 edition.
Helen Dalby, audience and content director for publisher Reach in the North East, said: “Devolution has the ability to be transformational for the North East — and all year, the Chronicle and Journal have been examining the issues that matter to people in our region, and striving to give a voice to those who have not always been listened to.
“”We sourced questions for the mayoral candidates covering a broad range of topics, from culture to transport to child poverty, from our readers via our social media platforms. We then welcomed five of the candidates vying to become mayor to our recently redesigned city centre offices to go head-to-head in a live debate chaired by Rob Parsons, editor of the Northern Agenda which provides excellent daily coverage of politics across the wider North.
“It was a fascinating hour of debate — and we’ve had a terrific response, which shows how vital it is to give candidates a platform to engage with the public.”
Greater Manchester is arguably home to the country’s best-known mayor — former Labour cabinet minister Andy Burnham. Such is his profile, and Greater Manchester’s tendancy to vote Labour, that some voters feel the election is already a done deal.
Burnham and four of the other candidates representing the Lib Dems, the Tories, Reform UK and the Greens participated in a hustings at the Manchester Evening News’s offices.
The event took place in front of a 40-strong audience which included first time voters from local sixth form colleges and a university, NHS representatives, campaigners on subjects like transport, the environment, health access, minority ethnic rights, women’s rights, victims of crime groups as well as the lawyer who represents Awaab Ishak’s family — whose death prompted the MEN to campaign for a change in the law.
In a lively debate Burnham and the Tory mayoral candidate Laura Evans clashed on Greater Manchester Police’s record. Other topics discussed included the local economy, the clean air zone, housing, transport, and how Greater Manchester’s boroughs can work better together.
Editor Sarah Lester said: “Hustings are an important part of the democratic debate and it was great to host such a big event at the Manchester Evening News offices. Both the audience and candidates were really engaged in the debate which got a bit spicy at times.”
Around the country, titles are taking different approaches to hustings. Latest TB, based in Brighton, filmed hustings for a local council ward while NLive radio in Northamptonshire arranged hustings for the election of a police and crime commissioner — again, a role which can struggle to get people engaged. The BBC has also been active in organising hustings in parts of the country, notably in Teesside, where a bitter mayoral campaign is taking place. Coverage of the event appeared in many local publications.
Not only do tomorrow’s elections bring the prospect of new mayors, new police and crime commissioners and new councillors, in part of Blackpool there’s also the small matter of electing a new MP.
Blackpool South MP Scott Benton stepped down after being caught up in a lobbying scandal. Ahead of the vote, the Blackpool Lead newsletter teamed up with the Blackpool Gazette to hold hustings.
It’s the only time the candidates were due to speak together — demonstrating at a stroke the value of local journalism holding such events, said Lead Editor North Ed Walker.
Ed said: “Necessity is the mother of invention, this by-election was called fairly quickly due to events. Working with The Gazette and The Blackpool Lead, it meant we were able to share the workload of organising the event itself and ensure it had a broad and diverse reach in terms of questions and attendance.
“We also decided to keep it focused on very local issues too. The compering by Shelagh Parkinson, who is a Local Democracy Reporter, also meant it was clear there was an impartial chair and she has a deep understanding of local issues and candidates — which they respected.”
Ed said that hustings also gave people a chance to look at politics in a new way, saying the Blackpool hustings had shown that “Decency is still there in British life — the way the candidates worked to keep focused on the issues they were asked about and the attendees were respectful too.
“Even though we had someone heckling, who was then removed, those attending self-policed and the candidate who was being targeted was supported by everyone in the room and on the candidate panel too — it was heartening to see.”
He added: “I also think there’s a real value in the candidates themselves having to face a room full of people, it’s very different dealing with questions in real life as opposed to email and social media etc. If they want to be an MP, they have to be able to take scrutiny from public and press.
“I think it would be a rather self-fulfilling prophecy for democracy and indeed local journalism if we gave up before we even started regarding turnout.”
