Elections are a bit like Christmas for political reporters – and as someone who’s covered many I can say it rings true – the intense build up, the adrenaline needed for the final push and of course the excitement of the anticipation of gifts (or in our case, news) that you have some idea of, but can’t quite fully envisage.
This set of local elections has been one of the biggest, both in the sense of their scale in my patch in the West Midlands, and the impact set against the shifting political landscape that we are all in.
Birmingham has been a real touchstone of this set, the biggest council in the UK, and a city that has faced (and is still facing) big financial problems and a bin strike. With a Labour routing, a complicated split result, and an administration still to be formed, it’s a fascinating ongoing story of political fragmentation that is being replicated up and down the UK.
Telling that story to our audiences, explaining what it might mean for their day-to-day lives, feels more important than ever. That is what makes BBC Local services so unquestionably unique. The BBC has 39 local radio stations, 13 regional TV programmes and 43 online news services, providing news to local communities across the country. In the three-week run up to polling day, I was on the BBC WM breakfast show nearly every day, explaining and contextualising the situations in our area and sharing how people were feeling.
Add in the different ways in which we are working – much more collaboratively and across multiple platforms – we are delivering more and more diverse content directly to our local audiences where they want to consume it. For example, on social media, there were more than 3.6m views of our content across our BBC West Midlands Facebook and Instagram pages on Friday 8 March and 30,900 engagements with the content.
No doubt, this does come with some challenges in terms of resources and demand, and the juggling of priorities that we are all used to as reporters. This can make the job a bit more complex.
But I can honestly say I’ve never enjoyed it as much.
I worked with digital and online colleagues in ways I haven’t before, I was part of England’s new social media push to make explainers for younger audiences, and I co-presented with Adam Fleming our first ever Local Electioncast programme that went out after the polls closed across all of local radio.
Most importantly I spent days out and about hearing how people were feeling, and I found – really interestingly – that they seemed more keen than ever to talk to me and to each other. Tram stops, halal butchers, coffee shops and street corners all provided the conversations that informed my reporting and the wider BBC’s.
The record reach of our regional coverage across socials, online, TV and radio backs that up, and the high numbers of new audience coming to what is a fundamental part of our remit. If it is a political reporters’ Christmas, it was one to remember.
BBC Local provides impartial and distinctive output rooted in the communities of England through 39 local radio stations, online news and digital output, market-leading regional news bulletins on BBC One and unrivalled local sports coverage.
