Election Time!

Quick thing to think about before today's post: tomorrow is the TUC March for the Alternative. By all accounts, it's going to be massive, though the UK papers have already started with stories about how it's going to be hijacked by extremists, violence is expected, etc. Keep an eye on the coverage - watch how different it is from the now-daily coverage of protests in the Middle East, Gulf and North Africa, which I mentioned in an earlier post. I'll try to post on Sunday when I've seen a bit of the coverage and find some examples. Or, who knows, maybe the coverage will be fair to the thousands who are likely to turn out and march peacefully and not focus on a few who might manage some destruction? Nah.

Actually, what are your thoughts on this? Is it irresponsible and/or sensationalist journalism to focus only on the bad bits and not give as much airtime to the grievances of the majority? Or is the destruction/violence legitimately the news, the thing people are going to want to see on TV and read about the next day? Does it give a skewed view of the participants? Is there a bias in coverage that assumes the protesters don't really have a right to be angry? Would love to hear some comments on this, from any country.

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I meant to post yesterday and link to a BBC story about the impending Canadian election, but I forgot and now it's been corrected. Some of you may have seen it, anyway. The reporter somehow managed to mix up Lawrence Martin, the political analyst he interviewed, with Lawrence Cannon, the Foreign Affairs Minister, resulting in a few choice quotes about how Canadians don't like Stephen Harper's 'autocratic' style...attributed to his Foreign Minister. The article also contained a photo of Jack Layton captioned "NDP leader and acting Deputy Mayor of Toronto". Classic example of super lazy journalism - Layton's (since edited) Wikipedia profile did indeed say he was acting Deputy Mayor of Toronto, which is presumably where that came from.

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So it's election time! In addition to the Canadian election, which could be as early as May 2, we have the referendum on Alternative Vote in the UK (which I get to vote in), UK local elections, and devolved parliamentary elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all on May 5. Throw in important Portuguese and Nigerian elections and an Icelandic referendum I need to keep an eye on for work, and all in all I'm pretty much going to be saturated with election coverage for the next month or two (when there aren't revolutions, wars and natural disasters to distract me. Oh, wait...).

I think election coverage always makes for interesting reading/viewing/listening. For one thing, politicians are at their very most clichéd - everything is a soundbyte, a campaign promise, a slogan. I find it infuriating, but it makes for some good observations. Election campaigns are one of the times when the various news outlets' editorial biases show most strongly (including, of course, outright endorsing a party or candidate). I'm hoping that watching the Canadian and UK campaigns at the same time will provide for interesting insights. And of course, there's always room for a slip-up here, a scandal there, a "bigoted woman" comment with the mic still on (or Nick Clegg's recent "If we keep agreeing there'll be nothing to debate" aside). One thing we probably can't depend on is proper analysis of policies (or the for/against arguments, in the case of the referendum) - it's always more interesting for people to read politicians making outrageous statements about how their opponent will ruin the country than to actually engage in informing the public. I'll keep an eye out for any coverage that actually does this particularly well, or particularly badly.