General Election 2015

General Election 2015: did TV let the voters down?

Leaders debate 2015

Did the broadcasters’ coverage of the last general election actually determine its outcome? This was one of the key questions asked during what session chair Martha Kearney called an “inquest” into how television handled the run-up to polling day on 7 May.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg certainly thought so. He argued that there was too much of a focus on the possibility of a Labour/SNP tie-up and this “had two very big consequences. One, it had a determining factor on the outcome.

Richard Sambrook’s TV diary

TV diary

Watching an election campaign from an academic perch is very different to organising coverage in the newsroom. My university colleagues are no less engaged, but they stand outside the media-political bubble and are usually better informed.

This can make some of their questions more challenging than those of presenters, correspondents or politicians. They seem to think opinion should be based on rigorous research and evidence. Quaint notion.


We have had a team researching media coverage of the campaign that has been published in The Guardian each week.

Our Friend in the West: Huw Jones

Huw Jones

For the past 12 months, the message from Westminster regarding BBC Charter review has been that nothing would happen before the election. Now, of course, it’s as if a starting pistol has been fired.

This is particularly so with sections of the press going into a frenzy of anticipation, based on certain previous statements by the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, John Whittingdale.

In Wales, the interviews I’ve been asked to do as Chair of S4C have all been about what it might mean for the future of the Welsh-language channel.

Paxman and Stewart on TV's election coverage

Jeremy Paxman and Alastair Stewart

Alastair Stewart may have hosted British television’s first political leaders’ debate in April 2010 but, more often than not, it was Jeremy Paxman who had the last word at a rumbustious RTS Legends lunch in May.

Steve Hewlett was the ringmaster at this highly entertaining event, which sought to bring an insider’s perspective to the recent general election.

For much of the time, the two TV anchor men agreed to disagree. Paxman was as cynical as Stewart was enthusiastic. Maybe he’d recently attended a positive-thinking course.

TV diary: Peter Bazalgette

Peter Bazalgette

Apparently, I've not contributed a diary since 2010. Perhaps I only get invited in election years. In May 2010, I was also asked to review the different channels' election coverage by The Guardian.

On that occasion, I called it decisively for Sky News. ITN was fine but less dramatic. And the BBC, with its ship-of-fools party and an over-academic Vernon Bogdanor and a swingometer that couldn't cope with a three-way race and, and, and...