Today and the General Election

Guy Starkey,

University of Sunderland

Problematising the Problematic

Already a contentious area: Today is often controversial, as is the nature of ‘balance’

General elections raise the political temperature to fever pitch

Programme makers do not produce in a vacuum: logistics and ‘news values’ intervene

Multiplicity of parameters: linear, linguistic (verbal & non-verbal) & paralinguistic

Need to seek a consensual analysis

Areas for Consensual Analysis

Frequency of appearance Duration of appearance Latitude given while ‘on air’

(challenge/collusion, on message/off message)

Comparison of like events Treatment (editing/stimulus/TBU) Location Cue/back anno

Frequency of Appearance by Party1997

113

5462

9 5 3 3 1 1 2 1 18

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Fre

qu

ency

Con Lab SLD SNP UUP SF Ref PC PUP DUP SDLP Green Others

Duration of Interviews by Party 1997

Con44%

Lab30%

SLD20%

Others6%

Asking the ‘Wrong’ Questions

“...that is a ludicrous and indefensible question and if you think I'm annoyed with you it is because it is thatkind of smeary question by Today programme

presenters which so annoys people who listen to this programme up and down the country.” 

Dr Brian Mawhinney, Today, 17/4/96 

“There are occasionally times when politicians ought to make it clear to the British public that they consider

some questions, even by professional journalists, to be illegitimate and to say so. That's what I did.”

Dr Brian Mawhinney, The Times, 18/4/96

Categorising Questions

Open Closed Multiple Leading Non-question

Soliciting opinion Checking Challenging Entrapment Release

McLeish R 1994 Bell P & van Leeuwen T 1994 

Opening Questions to Party Leaders JN to PA: “The security alert: do you think that the activities

of, we assume the IRA, in the last few weeks is going to have an effect on policy after the election, whoever is in Number Ten, and what is that effect likely to be?” OCMS (25/4/97)

JN to JM: “But, as we began, news again arrived of security alerts and disruption, so I asked the Prime Minister first of all what effect he thought such episodes might have.” OS (29/4/97)

JH to TB: “Mr Blair, when did you realise that the Labour Party’s policies on so many of the most important issues were wrong?” OL (28/4/97)

Latitude Given to Interviewees

 Average length of

interviewee speech (seconds)

Frequency of interviewer

interruption/total questions and non-

questions

Naughtie/Ashdown 14.57 13/35

Humphrys/Blair 13.97 43/47

Naughtie/Major 17.47 19/44

Party Leader Interviews,

1997

Questions and Non-questions

     “!No, no, no er er er er you use the word ‘unprincipled’, I didn’t. I’m trying to establish (TB interrupts) No, no, no because you may well feel, you may well feel, as you felt then, in the early days of your time in the Labour Party, that it was necessary to say certain things at that time, even though you believed other things - I mean, you go back to 1983, don't need to go that far back, go back to 1987 when you signed an early day motion applauding the fortitude and resolve displayed by men on the Wapping picket lines. Now it's inconceivable to imagine the modern Tony Blair doing that, saying 'those guys on the picket line are doing a brilliant job'. The same people incidentally who fought er Rupert Murdoch; you now are a friend of Rupert Murdoch - his newspapers, his tabloid newspapers support you. And what people are entitled to ask and many people do ask this question still, Mr Blair, notwithstanding the interviews that you've given, is: is what he is saying now, really what he believes or might he change again, might it be expediency?" 12