Guide to covering

the General Election

for community
journalists

By Lleu Williams, Helen

Taylor, Sian Beynon
Powell and Hannah
Scarbrough

Contents
Introduction..3
Engagement tools and tips4
Media law.8
Polling websites9
Devolved issues..10
Approaching a candidate..11
Selling yourself.12
The General Election timeline14
Polling day...15
Election night and conclusion16
Further reading and credits17
List of candidates..18

Introduction
What should you know before covering the General Election? And how have other
community journalists done it?
In this guide, we examine how you can cover the General Election safely and effectively,
and build engagement with your local community, including lots of free tools and tips.
Although this was created with community journalists in Wales in mind, there is still lots
of advice that hyperlocals across the UK will benefit from. We hope you find it useful!
UK General Elections are important watershed moments for democratic engagement. In 2010,
65.1% of the UK population turned out to vote, with a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition
being the eventual result. In Wales, the voter turnout was slightly less than the UK average at
64.8%.
The mainstream media has long been an integral component of General Election debate and
participation, presenting the latest manifesto promises in the morning papers and televising
leader debates. However, many have also accused the media of distorting political debate and
contributing to voter confusion and apathy.
In Wales, many have also levelled the accusation that the national and local press do not do
enough to inform their audiences about Wales-specific powers, with one survey finding that
42% of respondents did not know that the NHS was a devolved issue. There is an overreliance on London-based UK media sources, who often do not cover Wales-based issues
whatsoever.
However, the emergence of community or hyperlocal journalism means that there is a
greater plurality of media voices holding powers to account. Here in Wales, this led to the
creation of a Hyperlocal News Day at the Senedd, where Welsh community journalists were
invited to report on the work of the National Assembly. This day demonstrated a clear
appetite from community journalists in Wales to report on political issues which were
relevant to their local communities.

Engagement tools and tips for community

journalists
Not sure how you can cover the General Election? We hear from community
journalism sites including Tongwynlais.com, South Leeds Life and Richmond
Noticeboard, as well as many more, as they provide their tools and tips.
Partner up
Covering an election means a commitment of
time and resources, which are in short supply
for many hyperlocals who run their sites
around day jobs and family commitments. A
way of mitigating this is to partner up with
other news outlets in your constituency. Jack
Davies of Tongwynlais.com says: I am
sharing information and promoting content
with Cardiff North Decides, which is run by
The Cardiff North student-run site, partner of Tongwynlais.com
two trainee journalists at Cardiff University.
Ive also been in touch with well established hyperlocals in the constituency to let them know
what Im doing and to ask for their support.
The message is covering a general election is demanding work dont struggle alone! If
there are other news outlets or information providers in your constituency, get in touch to
pool resources and cross-promote content.
Create an election hub
For voters, it can often be difficult to find all the latest election news from your constituency in
one place. Jack Davies of Tongwynlais.com suggests using tools such as Rebel Mouse to pull
information together centrally and make life easier for your readers. Jack says: I created an
election hub back in October last year that uses Rebel Mouse to display tweets and content
from the candidates and their respective party sites. This lets people quickly see what each
candidate is saying online in an easy to digest format.
Bring together election debate through hashtags
The jury is still out on whether this is the first real social media election, but what is certain is
that social media will play an important role in facilitating voter conversation and debate.
Jack says: Ive created a main hashtag, #ATCNC, which I use on my content and which I
encourage the candidates to use. Ive also created a shorter hashtag for constituents to ask
the candidates questions."

Build your brand

Use election coverage as a platform to promote your site and build
your brand within your community. Jack has done this through
creating logos and posters for his coverage, along with
customised links and hashtags.
Give every candidate a platform on your site
Jeremy Morton of South Leeds Life said of his local election coverage in 2014: Clearly we
needed to be fair and offer equal coverage to all the candidates, so we set up a page on the
website for each ward, listing the candidates and then inviting them to send us text, images
and video to post. We sent the same invitation to every candidate on the same day, once the
Council published the lists of candidates and we set limits on the word count and video
length.
Hold your own hustings
What is a hustings? Jeremy Morton of South Leeds Life defines this term as: A hustings is
a public meeting where voters can hear the candidates speak and ask them questions. He
recommends holding your own, with partner organisations. Tongwynlais.com also hosted a
Twitter Hustings whereby constituents asked candidates their questions purely through
Twitter, and responses were collated at a Twub.
Create a Twitter list of your local candidates and share these with your audience
Sarah Hartley of Talk About Local has created a Twitter list of local candidates and has
promoted this to her audience in Richmond. She says: Following a list, rather than an
individual, means Twitter users dont need to declare a political allegiance to their regular
followers, if thats something youd rather treat as private.
Follow canvassers
Go on walk-arounds and canvassing trips with local candidates and write about the
experience. What were people angry about on their doorsteps? Did the candidates really
engage with the electorate in this way? If you are planning to try this, ensure that you ask
every candidate if you are able to come with them to ensure that your reporting is neutral.
Even if you only receive responses from one or two, you have guarded yourself against
accusations of bias.
Gauge candidates' social media performances
Sarah has used social media analytics tool Klout to gauge the social media performance of

her local candidates and discuss their level of engagement online with voters. Through
doing this, Sarah also discovered that two of her local candidates did not even have their
own Twitter profiles.
More tips and tools from community journalists
Here are some more excellent suggestions collated by community journalists at Talk About
Locals unconference:
Crowdsource from your audience 5 questions that people want to ask an MP
Find out where do candidates stand on this locality and whereabouts they live
Conduct video interviews with candidates and host these on your site
Try using Twitterfall to present tweets during a debate or hustings
Check the election promises from 2010 of incumbent candidates have they been met? If
not, find out why not.
Photograph/scan election literature and provide these as resources on your site
Use Google Hangouts to livestream hustings and archive on YouTube
Use Twittelection to find Twitter lists of all candidates in your constituency
Speak to your local betting shops to find out bookies odds on candidates
Find polling stations by using local councils location maps
Visit Election Unspun from Media Trust for week-by-week analysis of how the mainstream
media are covering the General Election
Livestream audio from hustings or debates using MIXLR
Visit Hustings.org.uk which is hosting a national online hustings
Your Next MP hosts a databse of General Election candidates, sourced from volunteers
Meet Your Next MP brings together lists of hustings and General Election events by
postcodes
MySocietys sayit tool allows you to publish meeting transcripts
Pollingstations.democracyclub.org.uk is a pilot tool to help you locate polling stations
nearby to you
Tools and tips from mainstream journalists
Joanna Geary, Head of News Partnerships at
Twitter UK, has written a useful article on using
Twitter to cover the general election. Here are
some of the highlights:
Boost your Twitter engagement by: uploading
photos with your tweets, tagging people in those
photos in your tweets, adding a GIF, uploading
photos with a filter (to make them look more
attractive), include a vine with your tweet

 Use national hashtags such as #GE15 and keywords such as politics in your tweets to
make these easily findable by a wider audience
Set up alerts so that you get an SMS each time a certain account tweets
Suggestions from others at Journalism.co.uks News:rewireds conference include:
Put your audience first - prioritise listening to them and provide information and resources
that they need.
Dont get lost in data - connect numbers and statistics with human stories to create
meaningful coverage.
Think mobile when creating content
Tailor stories to different social media networks and platforms - dont just adopt a onesize-fits-all approach

Media law
In this section we will provide some basic guidance on the law as it relates to covering
elections. However, if you are unsure of any feature or story idea, please seek legal
advice before publishing.
As we have mentioned before, impartiality is key to reporting elections and remaining on the
right side of the law. Some guidelines on impartiality are enshrined by regulators such as
Ofcom - although the following advice refers explicitly to commercial broadcasters, it is a
useful rule of thumb for any journalist covering the election. Section 6 of Ofcoms Broadcast
Code states that:
Due weight must be given to the coverage of major parties during the election period, and
broadcasters must also consider giving appropriate coverage to other parties and
independent candidates with significant views and perspectives (rule6.2)
If a candidate takes part in an item about his/her particular constituency, or electoral area,
then candidates of each of the major parties must be offered the opportunity to take part (rule
6.9)
Broadcaster must offer the opportunity to take part in constituency or electoral area reports
or discussions, to all candidates within the constituency or electoral area representing parties
with previous significant electoral support or where there is evidence of significant current
support, including any such independent candidate (rule 6.10)
Representation of People Act
The Representation of People Act (1983) is fundamental
knowledge for anyone seeking to cover an election.
Section 106 (1) of the act makes it illegal to publish a
false statement of fact about the personal character or
conduct of an election candidate, if the purpose of
publishing the statement is to affect how many votes the
candidate will get. The 1983 act also makes it an offence
to publish a false claim that a candidate has withdrawn
from the election. Breaching Section 106 could leave the
defendant with a fine of up to 5,000. If the publisher of
false statements is a company rather than an individual
then the companys directors can face conviction. The
Representation of People Act (1983) also covers exit
polls, it is illegal to publish results or predictions
before the polls have closed.
Please see our Further reading section at the end of this
document for more advice on media law as it relates to
covering an election.

Polling websites and other useful

information
In the digital age, information on political parties, policies and candidates has become
much more accessible than ever before. The same can be applied to political polling.
More and more research is being undertaken online and this has meant that the cost of
polling has reduced over the years. This is in comparison to the traditional door-knocking
method. As a result we are seeing more and more polls being published, which is very useful
for psephologists, journalists such as yourselves and the public alike. In the run up to the
2015 General Election, there are four websites which you will find very useful in providing
analysis on what is happening in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Firstly, lets look at what information is available on a local level. Whilst much of your
coverage may focus on individual constituencies in your hyperlocal area, unfortunately there
isnt much constituency based polling in existence, simply due to the costs associated.
Despite this, Lord Ashcroft has been polling individual marginal constituencies since May
2014, some of which includes Welsh constituencies. The website itself provides very useful
graphs comparing the results from the polls with the 2010 General Election. If you do decide
to use Lord Ashcrofts data, please do note that date that the polling was undertaken as it
could be upto a year old. The full link to Lord Ashcrofts data can be found here
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/constituency-polls/
The second source of polling data and analysis on a Welsh level can be found over at the
Elections in Wales blog. This site is run by Professor Roger Scully of the Wales Governance
Centre at Cardiff University. The blog itself is devoted to to the discussions and analysis of
elections and political representation in Wales. Whilst it is not updated daily, it does provide a
wealth of analysis and data that is readily available for consumption. The blog itself contains
all the polling data that has been undertaken in Wales, much of it by the Wales Governance
Centre, as well as Professor Scullys analysis of what it all means. The site also contains
relevant election results in Wales too. All of the relevant opinion polling data can be found
here: http://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/electionsinwales/opinion-polls/
Finally, there are two very useful websites for UK-wide opinion polling data. The first is May
2015 which is run by the New Statesman.This website, along with providing all the latest
polling data and a poll of polls (a kind of average poll of all the polls), also provides data on
what the public think on different issues. The site also has opinion pieces from experts on
different aspects of the election. The second site that is worth taking a peek at is UK General
Election 2015. This site is an excellent resource, for as well as all the latest polling data, as
a directory for all prospective candidates, party broadcasts and information on recent
elections in the UK.

Which issues are devolved? (and which are

not?)
Since 1999 and the formation of the National Assembly for Wales (as well as the Scottish
Parliament), certain powers have been devolved to Wales. This means that responsibility
over some policy areas lie in Wales with the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh
Government, rather than the Houses of Parliament and HM Government in Westminster.
Since 2011, the National Assembly for Wales has primary law-making powers in relation to
the devolved fields.
The Government of Wales Act 2006 outlines what powers are devolved to Wales. The twenty
areas of responsibility include:
Agriculture, Forestry, Animals, Plants and Rural Development
Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings
Culture
Economic Development
Education and Training
Environment
Fire and Rescue Services and Fire Safety
Food
Health and Health Services
Highways and Transport
Housing
Local Government
National Assembly for Wales
Public Administration
Social Welfare
Sport and Recreation
Tourism
Town and Country Planning
Water and Flood Defence
Welsh Language
If a policy area is not specified within one or more of the areas listed in the Act, or if it is
clearly noted as an exception or restriction within the Act, then the National Assembly for
Wales cannot legislate on that matter.
Whilst those areas are devolved to Wales, the UK Parliament is responsible for other matters
in relation to Wales. Policy areas that remain the responsibility of the UK Parliament and HM
Government include:

 policing and criminal justice;

foreign affairs, defence and security issues; and
welfare, benefits and social security.
Taxation (apart from powers to set council tax and business rates)
Fiscal and macroeconomic policy
Policy and public expenditure allocation across the UK
Block grant funding for UK Government departments and the devolved administrations
As expected, health is emerging as a key area for debate in the General Election with it
being used as the political football between Labour and the Conservatives at a
Westminster level. It is worth remembering that as health is devolved, the Welsh
Government, not the UK Government make decisions in this area. This also applies to the
education system in Wales, apart from school teachers pay and conditions.
Another key matter within this Election for Wales is the devolution settlement itself. The
current arrangement of powers for Wales is under a process of negotiation at a UK-level,
with parties in Wales calling for more powers to be devolved. More information on this can
be found in the St. Davids Day agreement, but it is worth noting that political discussions
around this matter are currently in flux.

How to get in touch with your local

candidates
Contacting your local candidate or MP, in some respects, has never been easier. Many are now
regular social media users and are used to communicating with the media and their constituents
through many different platforms.
In addition to new forms of social media, there are other ways of contacting your MP, either by
email or over the phone. However, often they will receive hundreds of emails and therefore
contacting them through social media may be a better way to ensure an answer.
As a hyperlocal journalist your strength is that you will be in tune with the issues within the
surrounding area and what the constituents are particularly worried about. If you contact your
local candidate, try to make it personal by asking them about their views and opinions on a local
issue.
Make it clear what youre asking of them, whether its a quote, an interview or just a quick
opinion about a local issue you know is bothering many people in your area. Do your research,
try to find out as much as you can about their policies and background in order to make sure
youre asking the right questions.
Your strength as a hyperlocal journalist is that you have a local readership and therefore will be
able to communicate directly with their voters and possible constituents. This should be
highlighted when you contact your candidate to ensure that they appreciate your reach within
the area.

Sell yourself (and your reach)

As a community journalist, you serve an engaged readership who share your news
articles, debate about your Facebook posts and send their news by tweet.
So dont underestimate yourself. When approaching candidates for a profile, question or access,
arm yourself with positive facts and statistics about your community news site. For some,
community journalism is sadly still an unknown quantity, but most candidates will be receptive to
an engaged audience of voters in their constituency.
There are several tools you can use (and will probably be already using) to quantify your
audience:
Google Analytics - the most significant measurement
tool for any website, Google Analytics will provide you
with statistics on monthly unique visitors, pageviews,
impressions and more (many of these metrics are also
useful if you are interested in appealing to
advertisers). You can also find out how many people
access your site from a smartphone, where they find
your site, and whereabouts your audience come from.
It is also useful to let candidates know how their profile
or bio is performing, which may make them more likely
to provide information next time.
Bit.ly - Use bit.ly to find out how your links are
performing. If you share a news story link on social
media or on your website, you can track the number of
clicks this attracts, which is a useful metric to present
to a candidate. You can also customise your links with
General Election-specific text.
Twitter and Facebooks own Analytics tools - Of
course, you can showcase your number of Twitter
followers and Facebook likes, which are often very
impressive in their own right. However, these figures
dont tell the whole story of your social media
engagement. For example, although Rhondda People
has 552 likes, using Facebooks Insights dashboard
the team were able to discover that one of their recent
posts was seen by a whopping 18,000 people. In the
same vein, Pobl Caerdydd used Twitter Analytics to
find out that their tweets in July 2014 received over

60,000 impressions. Therefore, be sure to include your reach as well as the baseline social
media figures when approaching candidates.
There are many other free-to-use tools to measure your audience and reach, including:
Buffer
FollowerWonk
Klout
SumAll
and many more!

The general election: a timeline

Following the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act which was passed by the current coalition
government, the date for the next general election, Thursday 7th May 2015, has been known for
some time. The dissolution of Parliament will take place on 30th March 2015. This means that
the current Parliament will finish. This will also signal the beginning of the short campaign
(formerly known as purdah) for the 2015 General Election. The short campaign typically begins
six weeks before a General Election, and during this period significant decisions on policy will
be postponed until after the election. Some other key dates to note are:
Thursday 9th April 2015- the deadline for candidates to put their nomination papers in
Tuesday 21st April 2015- the deadline for applying for a postal vote
Thursday 7th May 2015- polling day
All the relevant information can be accessed on the UK Parliament website.

Polling day
There are a number of ways you can report on polling day, depending on what time and
resources you have available, and what you think would have the most impact.
It is important to remember that you will not be able to film or photograph within the polling
stations, and that people might not be willing be share their voting intentions with you. See
below for three aspects of this day might be useful for you to cover, but this is by no means
exhaustive.
1) Reporting on candidates voting themselves
Candidates will obviously be interested in promoting themselves on polling day, and are likely to
welcome further coverage of themselves voting. This also gives them a last chance to get their
message out.
Party campaign offices could be contacted about when and where candidates are voting, and
whether they would be willing to allow you to cover this. As with all coverage, it is important to
get an equal coverage of all main candidates in order to ensure that you cannot be accused of
bias.
2) Exit poll
If you have a fair few hours and people power, an exit poll can be undertaken from a certain
polling station. This will be most useful in a marginal seat where it is debatable which candidate
will win.
To do this you can choose a period of a few hours during polling day, early morning or early
evening is likely to be busiest, and ask voters when they leave the station how they have voted.
You need to ensure that there is a representative sample of voters, and with this you can
suggest who is likely to win.
It is important to market this as what it is: a small sample, not a conclusive result. By doing this,
you can make a suggestion as to who might win that constituency based on your exit polling.
3) Final canvassing
Campaigners often do final canvassing during voting day to remind people to vote, particularly
those who have said that will definitely vote for their party. This can involve door-knocking and
leafleting across the day, such as at 9am, 12pm, and 5pm to catch all voters.
Candidates and canvassing teams might be willing for you to track this process, or parts of it,
and report on it throughout the day. Again this is dependent on times and resources.
It is unlikely that you will be able to do this for all candidates, therefore the impartiality issue is
raised again. It is important that you do not use the reporting to promote a particular candidate,
and legal advice should be followed in this regard.

Election night
Again, reporting on election night is dependent on time and resources. It is important to
balance these with the amount of impact you are likely to have in reporting the result of
the election real time.
Real time reporting at vote counts can be important, especially with the advent of Twitter, over
election night. However, the result is unlikely to be announced until the early hours of the
morning and your audience may all be asleep! Some people will stay up to follow proceedings,
likely on Twitter - but it is worth considering how many people in your area this will be.
If you would like to see if you can attend a local count on election night you could contact the
media officer for the Electoral Commission in Wales (Laura Ward on 029 2034 6810) who
should be able to give advice on hyperlocal journalists attending counts.

The aftermath and next steps

Firstly, the date for the return of Parliament will be known. As part of the dissolution of
Parliament ahead of the general election, a proclamation will be made on 30th March that
announces the date for the first sitting of the next Parliament.
As for government formation, the Monarch does not automatically invite the leader of the largest
party to form the government. Rather, as in 2010 and in February 1974, the incumbent Prime
Minister remains in office unless and until he tenders his resignation to the Monarch.
Furthermore, the Prime Minister is entitled to test the confidence of the House of the Commons
following the election, but if no majority is found then they are expected to resign. In the event
that the Prime Minister resigns then the Monarch will invite the person who appears most likely
to be able to command the confidence of the House to serve as Prime Minister and to form a
government. Further details are available in Chapter Two of The Cabinet Manual.

Conclusion
We hope that this Guide has given you the confidence and knowledge to cover the General
Election in your community and approach your local candidates. Community journalists have an
important role to play in holding power to account and informing voters in their local community,
and were looking forward to seeing how this role is exercised in this years General Election.
If you have any questions about your coverage, or want to seek advice on a feature youre
planning, get in touch with us in the following ways:
Tweet @C4CJ or @WalesGovernance
Email scarbroughh1@cf.ac.uk or meesee@cf.ac.uk
Call 029 208 70101
Good luck with your General Election coverage, and keep in touch!

Further reading
Electoral Commissions Media Handbook
Media Law - Reporting Elections
Handbook for Journalists during Elections
Election night reporting for local newspapers
The Cabinet Manual
BBCs Election Guidelines

Thanks and credits

Thanks to Sarah Hartley and everyone who contributed their election coverage ideas at Talk
About Local's 2015 unconference; and community journalists Jack Davies and Jeremy Morton
who provided tips and tools.
Image credits (flickr)
Front cover: secretlondon123 and Coventry City Council
Page 7: Coventry City Council

Candidates in Wales