The Polls Are The Narrative Now

How the UK media became obsessed with surveys

Jun 22, 2024

I’m often asked by friends, family and other non-news normies about ‘the narrative’, the mystical force which shapes the journalistic agenda in the UK on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.

You could write a whole book on ‘the narrative’ and how several interrelated factors, including socio-economic bias, geographic setting, readership and an outlet’s political stance as well as its peers, competitors and leadership, shape ‘the narrative’ in British media. Maybe I will one day (Nick Davies’ 2008 Flat Earth News is probably the next best thing).

But for the time being, the short answer to the question is that ‘the narrative’ is often formed by the biggest story or revelation of the day which has national significance.

‘The narrative’ is also often created on the weekends, with the Sunday newspapers and current affairs shows setting the tone for the rest of the week (the programmes land the big interviews, while the Sunday papers break news).

Then each weekday morning the BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme traditionally set ‘the narrative’ for the day. With stock exchange announcements going live at the same time of 7am, listeners are provided with a bonanza of business and political news.

And BBC Two’s Newsnight used to wrap things up around 10pm, with the next day’s front-pages being unveiled around the same time. ‘The narrative’, an ever changing and wild force, would be updated.

The rule of thumbs is that if another major story comes along, it will shift coverage across all departments of a newsroom – sometimes even the sports desk will have to re-angle their stories.

A tragic example of ‘the narrative’ in play at the moment is ‘Brits abroad going missing’ following the case of the late TV doctor Michael Mosley and teenager Jay Slater. Journalists will be attuned to further such cases and they are likely to receive more prominence than ever before.

On a more upbeat tone, Taylor Swift’s never-ending Eras Tour packs so much punch that entertainment, feature, business and other beats have produced at least one story on the event.

My local TV news station, BBC News London, decided to concentrate their resources on tackling scam-artists who have posted fake Airbnb listings around Wembley, the stadium Swift played at in the capital.

For the British political media, meanwhile, ‘the narrative’ has taken an unexpected turn.

Perhaps because the 4 July general election was a surprise (many were expecting a national poll in October or even November) or perhaps because they were bored by the robotic performances of Labour’s Keir Starmer and the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the opinion polls have been setting ‘the narrative’.

It’s unprecedented ground for the UK. Unlike the United States, there are general election manifestos, we don’t have a presidential system and swing seats are usually well-covered (Sky News is doing an admirable job on this front at the moment).

So although there’s always an element of ‘horse-race journalism’ – a term Jay Rosen uses to describe the media over-focusing on who’s going to win rather than the issues – the British media usually – an emphasis on ‘usually’, here – does a solid job at not over-doing the party leaders schtick.

But the polling throughout the campaign for the Tories has been so dire that political journalists can’t keep their eyes off it. There’s also the Nigel Farage factor.

The prominent Trump supporter originally said he wasn’t going to run in the election and leave the leadership of the Reform Party to Richard Tice.

Then, spotting a severe lack of charisma amongst the Prime Ministerial hopefuls, Farage took over Reform and declared he would run for Parliament in Clacton, a pro-Brexit seaside seat in the South of England which London has forgotten about.

Having to deal with the ever-cautious Starmer and low-powered Sunak, the British political class lapped it up. Farage’s savvy social media team also played a blinder by posting pithy and catchy videos across his channels. Eminem’s Without Me, with its ‘guess who’s back, back again’ riff, was used to announce his come-back.

Farage and his party owned the airwaves and the papers for at least a week. Then, further super-changing their campaign, the results of a YouGov survey published on 13 June via The Times showed that Reform had overtaken the Tories for the first time.

The media went into overdrive covering the results of just one survey, giving Reform another dominant week in the air-war campaign. Now, just past the half-way mark, outlets continue to fixate on the polls.

‘The narrative’ has shifted slightly, though. It’s more about the demise of the Conservative Party rather than the rise of Reform. And in fairness to the journalists the Conservative Party have also played into this narrative.

Tory spokespeople continue to warn of a ‘Labour supermajority’ in the House of Commons post-4 July. As for the main concerns of British voters, including healthcare, the economy and immigration, it looks like we may have to revisit them after the election.

Other tech and media news of interest🤔

Political Press Box update. A British version of Longform focused solely on political journalism is hardly revolutionary, but the interviews seem to be going down well.

The latest edition is with Seb Whale, the next big star of political non-fiction writing. I’m hoping to get some US political correspondents on soon as well. They’re going to have a wild ride up to November.

WaPo drama continues. Some American journalists have called this a ‘British invasion’ of the US press, but that couldn’t be further from the truth, especially because they lump Mark Thompson, now at CNN, into the mix and don’t take his background into account.

I would also point out a couple of elements which keep getting missed amid the controversy: we know, via The New York Times, that Jeff Bezos had enough of The Washington Post’s lacklustre finances back in 2023 and we also know the outlet is losing more than $70 million per year.

If you want sustainable journalism, it will (by definition) have to be profitable. If you want to pursue a non-profit or charitable endeavour, good luck with that. Either way you look, there will be benefactors.

The late and great Ross Anderson. “The idea that you can do surveillance while respecting privacy is just magical thinking.” - was the zinger from the University of Cambridge’s Ross Anderson, a long-time digital libertarian, in response to the UK’s Online Safety Bill. Britain went onto pass the bill into legislation, but decided not to ban end-to-end encryption.

The EU is now facing a similar predicament and has delayed a vote on such a measure only after an outcry against it.

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For high-praise, tips or gripes, please contact the editor at iansilvera@gmail.com or via @ianjsilvera. Follow on LinkedIn here.

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