reportage

Cultural Resonance

Death Tax is a big phrase to throw around. Regardless of whether or not a tax equivalent to the scale being talked about is planned, it’s the message that’s important not the details.

It’s an American idea really, it pops up time and again in political textbooks as an example of how to effectively name legislation in order to galvanise support or opposition. Attach a snappy name and people will believe it’s bad for them and they might even vote against their own interests.

There’s a big problem with it. It scares people. Fear is a powerful motivator for all the wrong reasons. It doesn’t play well to the electorate because people don’t like to consider their own mortality or the mortality of their families. For the vast majority of the population there are more pressing matters than considering how much they’ll leave in inheritance.

So, the current image campaign of the Tory Tombstone; It is a calculated ploy to lure older voters, the only demographic who really care about death and tend to vote in stable numbers on election days. You can count on the votes of the elderly especially when they believe their finances are under threat.

The Conservatives are giving with the left and taking with the right with this sort of imagery.  You can’t be for “Change” when your billboards resemble the politics of old. You can’t look fresh and optimistic one day and have your party apparatus playing the politics of fear in the next news cycle.

Specifics are the scourge of political campaigning. Poll numbers stay higher with simple messages that people can grab on to. When numbers, statistics and the fine print are introduced to the public and critical thinking begins there will be a dip based on a portion of society disliking them.

So Mr Cameron’s Conservatives: Why are you stalling the in the polls? Because of your inconsistency. The campaign team are caught up in Westminster thinking. Speaking to politicians, consultants and hacks who will tell them exactly what they want to hear. They’re trying to squeeze votes in demographics by putting out tailored messages. 

“Change” was a great sell to the American people because it was a simple, unifying message that resonated with the mood of the time. By the time the election campaign got underway the message was established and the momentum carried Obama. The power of sticking with the narrative managed to defy conventional thinking. A political newcomer beat the experienced moderate Senator by making it all about “Change”.

Give people a reason to vote for you, not a reason to be scared of the other guy. 

Election Night

Justice Minister Jack Straw has backed an amendment to make election night counts compulsory lending Government support to the motion and hopefully ensuring that it will pass during a free vote in the House.

So should we really save election night?

Yes. In a world increasingly dominated by the demand for immediacy in news it would be a step backwards to put off a count until the morning after the vote for reasons of efficiency that are dubious at best. The same amount of people will be needed to count votes and the whole exercise, costed over a period of years costs very little compared to the white elephants every council has hidden in their cupboards.

As soon as the ballot boxes make their way to the counting rooms they should be counted and be seen to be counted by an audience. There are few ‘traditions’ in this country that remain untouched and election night is one of them. People get up, they vote and then they watch them, they wake up in the morning and the process is over, a winner has been announced and there’s a new Prime Minister in time for tea.

Not everything has to be modernised and sanitised to the level where it panders to as many people as possible. If the counts were moved to the day after those counting the votes would ask for a day off from work and the counts would have to be held within ‘family hours’. Whatever that means anyway. The same Police officers would be required as would the same levels of staff.

It is one night every few years where ‘Democracy’ puts on a show and reminds voters that the process is important. Many of the seats never change hands but their names are read out, the tallys are counted and the results are talked about for hours because that’s how it’s done.

Let’s not kid ourselves. It won’t save much money, it’ll leave the ballot boxes open to tampering, it’s bad for the public to see that we are essentially now ‘too lazy’ to sit up and count.

Besides, the councils saving money will just find new and interesting ways to fritter it away.

Campaign Basics

Saturday was a rather negative look at the online political landscape so today I’m going to talk about some of the basics of campaigning. Some of this might seem rather obvious to you but campaigns, especially inexperienced ones, are capable of committing the most horrific errors. 

Elections revolve around two things: mathematics & psychology

1. People want to help you.

Yes my dear candidate, you are going to have to get over your trust issues and allow outsiders into your campaign. There are legions of people who will help you if only you let them, they’ll do it for free and they’ll work for hours on end. Many will do this for the simple reason that they believe in the same cause as you. In our increasingly polarised society this is the default mindset of committed voters. The other side are no longer ‘the other side’ they are ‘the enemy’. But you say, my dear fellow, we already have that apparatus.

No, you don’t. You have a circle of people in a comfort zone that haven’t campaigned differently for years or are being led by someone who hasn’t. I say this because time and again it is overlooked by those running a campaign in favour of other priorities because they think they have the resources. That may run true in a ‘soft’ general election but in 2010 everything should be done to guarantee victory.

Perhaps you have too much pride or too many suspicions to go out and ask for help but this must be overcome. There is no greater currency in the 48 hours before election day than feet on the ground. A committed, well trained and mobile force can turn the odds regardless of any event. Nowhere is this more valuable than in the marginals. The moment you lose it will dawn on you that you didn’t get enough of your people to the polls, something you could have remedied with a good get out the vote operation.

2. Young people think they’re smarter than you, and in some ways they are.

All of those emails that you get from students begging to come volunteer or work for you during the holidays should be filed and then actioned. Growing up with technology they’ll have a natural grasp of the things you’ve had to spend days learning, they take to new methods quicker and they’re more open to suggestion (being ordered around) than some of the older bunch who see this as a hobby.

Students, especially politics students, will do anything for experience without being tied down. Can they spare a few hours a week? Of course they can because they’re all unemployed and happy to put down an election campaign on their CV. Many of them will be first time voters -a group very open to suggestion- and will use their own social networks to shill for you. An instant portal to young voters.

Your volunteers can, in the space of a day or two, find everything your opponent has ever said on the record, everything he or she has ever voted on and a whole series of embarassing rumours that are ripe for exploitation. They can design you flyers, publish your videos on youtube, create a flickr account and then spend the rest of the day on google maps designing routes to take to deliver material to every house in your constituency.

It’s not about replacing older workers but identifying inefficiencies and countering them, they can help the new group by telling them who to go after, where to target and what issues work best within the community. A marriage of creative thinking, efficiency and experience produces better results than plodding along doing things the way they’ve always been done. 

3. Register Voters

It’s overlooked but in the run up to the election campaign a concerted effort to register voters in your constituency can be a great training tool for new staff. Increasing the size of the voter pool in a constituency improves your chances of capturing votes. Conventional thinking will say that most people are registered to vote, but for young people, married couples and those who have moved house the priority of going out and physically posting the voter registration letter is low down on the ladder of things to do.

Most people will be unaware that there is a cut-off date for voter registration and after that point, if you are not registered you are unable to vote. There is no American method of provisional balloting in which someone can prove they are eligible after casting a provisional ballot. No voter card = no vote.

When canvassing, every conversation you ever have should end with the words “Are you registered to vote?”

4. Tribalism

I recall hearing from an old editor that there was an area in Birmingham which could only be won by a candidate revealing his view on the issue of whether India or Pakistan had a legitimate claim to the province of Kashmir. It sounds preposterous but is entirely true. Issues which do not affect national campaigns are often staples of local campaigns, it is the candidates job to know and to exploit these positions. They require nothing in the way of ‘proving’ your support and if you don’t know about them they have a nasty way of educating you.

5. Local Stories

Constantly assert that you are local and your opponent is, somehow, an outsider. If you’ve grown up in the community tell everyone you have, repeatedly, until they collapse from the sheer weight of your pride. When speaking to older voters be sure to point out how things used to be, the idea that you are a trustworthy local figure who “knows how it’s supposed to be” will help. If you’re not local then you’re going to have to fend off these attacks. It’s easier for people to listen to your policies when they know you are “one of them”.

6. Go Postal

In our fair land, any elector can request a postal ballot for no specified reason. For those you may not be able to reach on election day an effort should be made to show them how to request a postal ballot. If the election is held during term time many students from small towns will have gone away to University. They won’t have bothered to change their registration so a way to engage them is to make sure they are registered for a postal vote. If you can pick up a hundred votes from this then it’s worth it.

7. Grip & Grin

Unless you live in a marginal most people will have no real contact with their MP. They’re just a name on a ballot next to a party that people normally vote for, because thats just who they vote for. They will, overwhelmingly, not know where their elected member stands on the issues which affect them. This seems like a perversion of democracy, but we elect representatives to make the decisions for us, so people remain uncaring. Get out there, on the street shaking hands and talking to people. Be seen, and be seen to be seen.

Implanting distrust between a wavering or new voter in the party that they support is the first step on the road to getting them behind you. Show your face, meet people, if they like you and you’re nice to them the chances that they vote for YOU -the only person they have met- increases. 

8. Don’t be a Dick

Stand up for what you believe in but if you look like a bully people will shy away from voting for you. If you viciously attack your opponent you look like a mouthy upstart trying to run a smear campaign. Those interested in politics love a good fight but it can make people feel uncomfortable and consider whether you are, inherently, a bit of a dick despite the nice face you put on everything. 

If your attacks are based on solid ground there are ways of delivering the message without coming off like, well, a politician.

*Note: If you are ten points down, go straight for their throat. 

9. Councilling.

There isn’t a voter alive who doesn’t have a problem with their local council. Whether it be with council tax, recycling, bins, planning issues or business rent councils are the source of a great deal red meat to campaign on. Local voters also hold MPs responsible for a great deal of problems that are actually council issues.

There is a nearly unlimited supply of fuel to add to the campaign fire when it comes to councils. Drug rehab centres next to schools, fortnightly rubbish collection, mandatory recycling, decreased funding for street cleaning. All are staples of a campaign and if your opponent is of the same party that controls the council do everything possible to tie him/her to it.

Want to see a voter get angry? Talk to them about getting their bins collected.

And most importantly of all:

Don’t be afraid to change things. If you’re starting in a constituency where your party has lost before then it’s time to start with a new set of ideas: your own. If this is your shot then run the campaign that you want. The people who are working for you are often the people who have experienced the loss, and in some cases, have caused it.

Do everything you can because you have nothing to lose. The worst thing that can happen to you is a loss and if you’re in an opposition safe seat that has already been decided for you. Pull every trick, go after every vote and make the other party really run for the seat, whip up the local press (who will love the column inches) and go after the non-traditional voters. You’ll lose, but you’ll have fought and if you gain ground you might just make a lot of people in the party very happy with you.

The Election

Twitter = Trouble

Yes, it does. And as party central offices scramble around trying to realise how to use twitter it is the Tories who have been the first to deem it more trouble than it is worth for their PPCs.

This decision will not have been a hair trigger response, but will have come from a careful study of metrics and the cost/benefit analysis in terms of who the messages reach and whether or not those numbers can be achieved with less risk than traditional methods.

• 1. Do you really want to have a fight on the internet?

Campaigning for a political party gives users a purpose and they will take it upon themselves to stick their oar in. Many of those people you deem normal, friendly types on your list of Followers/Followed will quickly become shills for their party or ideology, and you’re going to have to listen to it. You respond and you’ve got a fight on your hands and everyone is watching you. Fights are not exclusively between two people, when it comes to politics, people love sticking their nose in. Most importantly of all, it draws attention.

Yes, it is going to happen regardless of your presence, but to be on the outside of a fight looking in is less bloody than being in it.

• 2. Risk Assessment

A quick and easy method is as follows. Take a piece of paper and write in one column the number of benefits from having twitter than you can think of, and in the other column write the potential problems. Assign those in the left column with a numerical value one quarter of those on the right. Benefits will not always win you votes but may point you towards them. The right column’s potential problems will almost certainly cost you votes if they come to fruition. The highest number is the one you go with, a higher score on the problem side and don’t even think about it. 

It’s not scientific but it makes you think twice about the glittering landscape of voter engagement that so many people are telling you about.

• 3. Cost/Benefit Analysis.

Campaigns, especially local, have a finite level of resources which must be split between paying staff and campaigning. The cost/benefit analysis of traditional campaigning vs e-campaigning is clear. Local people vote for local candidates, sending leaflets to constituents has a higher take up rate than emails so there is a case to be made that the internet is Fool’s Gold. In certain constituencies the money you spend on the staffer who spends a couple of hours a day maintaining a heavy web presence could be better spent on stuffing envelopes.

• 4. The Feeding Frenzy

Almost every Journalist working to a daily target of stories has a twitter account, those who don’t will undoubtedly have someone at a neighbouring desk who does. Hacks shouldn’t write to feed the beast, but they do, so any possibility of a story is followed up. Therein lies the problem, those up for election with a twitter account can now be relentlessly barraged by questions from Journos who aren’t getting a response from Press Officers, who, often seek to deny their own existence.

All of those questions will be in the public domain and if only one voter takes umbrage at the lack of answers, and they will, the cascading effect could be disastrous. An hour later an enterprising hack is writing a process story on how a twitter revolt is taking place when a PPC is refusing to answer questions on twitter. One tweet and you can move from playing offence to being on the defensive, and you can’t deny any of it.

Remember the wall scene from In The Loop? That constituent is on twitter now.

• 5. It’s a numbers game

Each constituency contains roughly 100,000 people. The problem here is that social relationships on the internet do not adhere to traditional geography. Users are spread out and take no notice of the distance between those they interact with. For many constituencies there will simply not be enough people on twitter that you can connect with in your area. Getting your message out is useless if you’re only being read by people who can’t vote for you.

You also run the risk of alienating voters in other constituencies. A defence of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link is going to piss off everyone outside Glasgow.

• 6. Marginals

This is where you reverse traditional thinking. Every votes counts, every single one of them. You will have an army of young netizens clued up on social networking and twitter pulling every imaginable trick to get voters to believe you are a direct descendant of Satan himself.

There is no other option but to fight fire with fire, to get involved and run your fight back on your own terms, rather than let your own supporters fight a pitched battle. For most candidates, twitter will only cost them votes.

• 7. Defamation

They’re going to say unimaginably horrible things about you on the internets, much worse than the press who you have a relationship with. If you sue for anything less than an allegation that you beat your own family your campaign is over. If you try to stop any kind of rumour with force, your campaign is over, for you will suddenly become a national poster boy for civil liberties groups.

• In conclusion

The Conservatives, flush with millions of unspent pounds, have made the careful deduction that they do not want to have a fight on the internet in an atmosphere where only their mistakes are likely to be picked up on. They have the money and base to physically deliver literature to voters and can knock on their doors. They can afford the robocalls and the cars to take voters to polls. Why pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel?

Twitter is an organisational tool that will allow party workers to communicate with each other on the ground and to spread their propaganda, dirty tricks and sound bites of the day. It is a curious mix of organisational tool, party rallying tool and voter denial system. It is not to mistaken for a happy place that allows politicians to canvass local support. 

In the run up to the election the noise will increase from all sides. In the atmosphere of a party rally the independents will go along with the chants but will be uncomfortable with just how fervently everyone believes the message without critical thought. It is one thing to say that you support a party, and quite another to go to the ballot box. 

Twitter is like all mediums, if you manage it well it will be beneficial. But if you attempt to use it in anything campaign related you open yourself up to the consequences of fighting on the internet, with a massive audience where the results are displayed in real time. 

Can twitter get you elected? No

Can you win with it? Maybe.

Can it cost you an election? Yes

Evolution

The fireworks surrounding the as-yet unlaunched Apple tablet have got me thinking about just what it could mean for journalism.

Journalism has long had a strangle hold on information by delivering itself via a well defined medium. Paper, radio and television. If you wanted news you had to be a slave to the media on which it was based. Not anymore.

There’s a lot of talk that this device will save newspapers and some interesting arguments against that, but the real story is the fallacy of the premise. The newspaper cannot be saved because the format is already in a terminal state. It is instead going to evolve and the apple device will serve as a catalyst, not revolutionising the industry but giving it a serious push forward, legitimising a focus on online news by traditional media.

Publishers will move from plugging a gap in the form of a website to concentrating seriously on web development. Those who don’t won’t die a sudden death and immediately lose their readerships, they’ll slowly fade into obscurity a little more every year, losing staff and concentrating more and more on agency copy until the day they can’t afford to print anymore and have to switch to online journalism.

I graduated as a Broadcast Journalist last year, meaning that to me, the newspaper party is pretty much over. I have no sentimentality to the medium, only an attachment to the reporting. I used to read papers every day when they were in the house, but now I don’t because it’s redundant. What I see in a paper I can read online. I enjoy the content provided by professional journalists. You rarely get the same kind of investigative prowess displayed in papers displayed online by freelance or independent journalists. And if you do then it’s hard to find. It lacks a voice.

Vast strides have been made by media companies in Scotland. Each national and many local papers have an interesting, timely and easily navigated website. At the moment senior management are not looking seriously at developing more than a token presence in online journalism. It would be unfair to blame them given that papers are still the key source of income and deviating from that suddenly would be economically suicidal.

But steps can be taken to shore up online resources over time. The investment in new kit, staff and turning the key hacks away from print and onto online doesn’t have to happen overnight but at the moment it seems to have stalled, as if people think that they’ve done enough and that their position can be held. But it can’t, unless websites continue to grow and evolve they will permanently play second fiddle to their print siblings, merely exacerbating the situation. All that money wasted on what is largely a rehash of content that is in todays paper.

So, right now, online papers lack a mass of innovative content, and online journalists lack a mass market platform. What can national or regional media do? I’ve put together a few principles I think are relevant.

1. Open it up. Go native and get readers to write for you. Yes you might have to employ a sub to go through the copy and 50-60% of submissions might be junk, but there will be interesting, local stories that you can tidy up, tag and deliver to users. Pilot this on a local level. If web teams don’t have the reporters, then crowdsource instead of paying for freelancers. It’s cheap and creates a stable of new talent for the paper. The biggest risk is the bollocking you’ll get from the NUJ.

2. Balance your priorities. Allocate resources and diversify content. If the newsroom has camera kits then send people out to film things. Put them on the roof and make them read the headlines if needed. Staff have to get familiar with kit and become comfortable editing. Film everything that moves and you’ll soon have journalists thinking in pictures, the key to video journalism.

3. Don’t be afraid to do interesting, innovative things with video and audio. The old rules don’t apply anymore. You could have a daily voxpop, give it a catchy title and it’s filmed, edited and upped within an hour. Purely for an online audience but people will watch it because they’re often quirky.

4. Try some responsive journalism. The public want to share their content with you and if you display it and give them a medium they’ll come back to you. It’s such a simple concept but so many news sites are ignoring it. Be nicer to people.

5. Build a following, ask people what they want and dedicate some time and effort to having a decent shot at providing it. Talk to people via facebook and twitter. Get militant about your stories. Tell people what you’re publishing and why they should read. If you have an iPhone app then go crazy promoting it and give it away for free.

This, being a year of a hotly contested election and national referendum on independence gives content providers the unique opportunity to justify doing new and ballsy things for an online audience safe in the knowledge that there will be people out there eager to consume the content. The conditions for roping in new readers have never been so good, and once they come it’s likely that they will stay.

The iPod was nothing special and superior commercial rivals existed at the time of launch, but it became familiar and then ubiquitous because of its branding, the simple mechanism and the ease of downloading new content. The apple tablet will bring hundreds of thousands of new consumers just as the iPhone did and those who establish a strong online presence will gain. The iPod won the market because people were familiar with it and knew it was reliable.

Familiarity is a powerful marketing tool, while papers have a large subscription base they should be transitioning those people to electronic forms with every tactic they can muster.