You could be forgiven for forgetting who was at the centre of this general election campaign.
As blogger Max Atkinson noted, the BBC 10 o’clock news ran a seven and a half minute report on Monday’s Citizens UK event, with 22 seconds from each of the leaders’ speeches; and 123 seconds of political editor Nick Robinson. Private Eye reported in its latest issue that one onlooker wasn’t sure which Nick was going to make the speech during one part of the Lib Dem election trail.
And of course, the thought that it might not be Us Wot Won It has sent newspaper journalists and bosses into election influence overdrive: storming newspaper offices and frontpage scaremongering like crazy.
So, forget about the politicians and their wives, which journalist has done it for you during the general election coverage?
Tomorrow morning we’ll be running a few polls to establish just that. But first we need some nominations. Here are the categories:
- Best political journalist
- Best political blogger
- Best political tweeter
- Most sycophantic political coverage
- Biggest election blunder (journalistic!)
Please comment below, or send nominations by tweet (@journalismnews) or email: judith [at] journalism.co.uk. NB: Category suggestions also welcomed.
No obvious category fits Tim Harford, whose corrective analysis of the stats the parties used on PM, Today, his FT blog and the More or Less weekly podcast were enormously enlightening.
It wasn’t a game-changer this time, since the election turned out not to be about policies, but come the next election the kind of fact checking Tim’s team (and the Channel 4 Fact Checker people) are able to undertake in real time may well be invaluable.