WINOL Week 6 - Rowenna Davis Interview

This week I conducted an in-studio interview with Rowenna Davis, the Labour candidate for Southampton Itchen. This was the second in a series of big political interviews that I aim to complete before Christmas.

The interview has collected a large number of views, a big reason for this is that Rowenna Davis tweeted the link to the video on her Twitter, which has over 15,000 followers.

On the day of the interview I also tweeted Conservative Royston Smith, who will most likely be Rowenna Davis' biggest competitor in the 2015 General Election. He responded well, so I am currently working on getting him to come in for my next Big Interview. 

I am also working on increasing the viewership, on both my interview with Rowenna Davis and Diane James, by posting links to the videos on relevant political forums and Twitter pages.

I was very pleased by the content of the interview, however i felt that the production side of it lets it down. The lighting is far too spotlighted and gives off quite an intense feel. This is purely down to the fact that this style of interview is new for us, so I will be working closely with the production team to try and get it right for the next interview. 

For my text story for the WINOL website I chose to focus on three main topics that were brought up during the interview:

In an exclusive WINOL interview, Labour MP candidate Rowenna Davis said that she was “honoured and excited” to have been chosen to replace Southampton Itchen MP John Denham in the 2015 General Election.

When questioned on her Conservative competitor Royston Smith, she said: “I don’t think that this man can govern”, and added that: “he is someone that I will respect and take very seriously, but I do not fear him”.

Davis also said that despite her ties with Portsmouth, if there was a football match between Portsmouth and Southampton, she would “absolutely be wearing Southampton colours”.

The former journalist said that she agreed there needed to be some form of press regulation to prevent the “cartel of media giants” and stop the likelihood of a monopoly in the industry. But she disagreed with party leader Ed Milliband, who has supported the Royal Charter, saying that “the freedom of press is paramount,” adding: “people should be allowed to have their say without being fearful of the state”.

WINOL - Week 6 - Eastleigh By- Election

The Eastleigh by-election was triggered by the resignation of Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne after he pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.

Fourteen parties took part in the race for the MP seat:
Party - Candidate
Liberal Democrat - Mike Thornton
Conservative - Maria Hutchings
Labour - John O'Farrell
UKIP - Diane James
Independent - Danny Stupple
Monster Raving Loony Party - Howling Laud Hope
Elvis Loves Pets - David Bishop
National Health Action Party - Dr Iain Maclennan
Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party - Ray Hall
Christian Party -  Kevin Milburn
Peace Party - Jim Duggan
English Democrats - Michael Walters
Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts - Daz Procter
Wessex Regionalist - Colin Bex

However, despite the many parties in the race, the main contenders were the Lib Dems, Conservatives, Labour and UKIP. Eastleigh had been a Lib Dem constituency since 1994, but after the Huhne scandal they had their work cut out to regain the trust of the voters. Prior to 1994 the Eastleigh seat was held by the Conservatives, so the Conservatives were keen to reclaim Eastleigh, making this a real battle between the co-alition partners and threw Eastleigh into the media spotlight. For Labour the by-election was a chance to bring their party policies south as they are typically a party more popular in the northern parts of England, and they were pushing for Ed Milibands "one nation" Labour. UKIP saw this as their opportunity to be taken seriously, as a relatively new party this was their chance to compete against the three big parties and get their policies heard.

As part of their campaign all of the parties brought out the biggest names they could to help appeal to the voters. The Lib Dems brought Nick Clegg, the Conservatives brought David Cameron, UKIP brought Nigel Farage and Labour brought Ed Miliband.

The Conservatives came under some criticism that their candidate, Maria Hutchings, was not in the media light enough and wasn't interacting with the voters. This was something I found to be true as WINOL had a real struggle trying to get in touch with her prior to the election. I managed to interview her at one in the morning, after sitting through what can only be described as the longest housing meeting ever. However she only agreed to the interview out of sympathy for our student dedication and we were warned to only ask her about the housing development. On reflection I should have just asked her about her policies anyway, what were they going to do?

WINOL produced "The South Decides" on the night which was our Eastleigh by-election special. Our show went live at 10pm until 12pm and then it transferred to the radio show until about 1am when the show went live again as the results show.
 For the by-election special I produced a package on housing and I was also the political correspondent reporting from the count in Eastleigh.

Housing package:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2K2K8KNfcU

The OB Team:
Louis, Kirsty, Ellen and myself.

Unfortunately on the night things didn't go quite as smoothly as we would have hoped. Producing live OB's from the count was optimistic but we felt that we were prepared. Originally we planned to link a camera and gun mic to a laptop and use Skype, however we soon learnt that we couldn't get the laptop to register both so we decided to compromise on the visual quality by using a web cam and the gun mic. We tested this system in the news room and it worked perfectly without any hiccups so we were sure it would be fine on the night, we had even practised with the exact equipment we would be using. What could go wrong? ... Everything.

We were the first of the media to arrive at the count, despite one lone BBC camera man and his never ending collection of wires. We decided to set up immediately and make sure everything worked. It didn't. At first we couldn't get the microphone to connect to the laptop so when we tested Skype Nicole couldn't hear anything. We tested all of the equipment and it worked separately, but refused to work together. We believed the source of the problem was the wire which connected the gun mic to the USB port so Lou ran to go and buy another. Once he returned we attempted Skype again and this time the laptop wouldn't recognise the web cam. By this point time was running out and we had been forced to move from our set up point as we were in the BBCs allocated space.

After many failed attempts our only workable solution was to Skype via iPhone... professional. But we made the best of a bad situation and gave live OBs whenever we were thrown to. We also managed to announce the result, although it didn't go as smoothly as production probably would have liked. We were unsure when the results would be announced so we were dependent on rumours and guess work. When Mike Thornton was announced as the winner of the Eastleigh by-election he was greeted with a cheer and a chorus of "we like Mike". We filmed the candidates giving their speeches and we managed to get reaction interviews with all of the candidates except for Maria Hutchings who refused all media interviews.

There was a fantastic atmosphere within the count, the hustle and bustle, grabbing people for interviews, trying to get as much information as we could from people, and being a part of the media scrum. The pressure of speaking on a live OB is the scariest thing I have done and the pressure was like no other. Fighting through the sheer exhaustion and running off of nothing but caffeine really gave us the feeling of being real journalists.

I was also lucky enough to be interviewed by Sky. I expected them to ask me about WINOL or our journalism course but no, they asked me about the election and the parties policies. Fortunately I had been following the by-election religiously so I could answer their questions, but it was unbelievable terrifying. I am currently badgering them to send me the footage, so I will upload it as soon as I get it.

All in all the by-election was a fantastic experience for us and provided fantastic material for us to report on. We were incredibly lucky that it was right on our doorstep, but I don't think I will be rushing to Eastleigh again anytime soon.

An edited version of the South Decides:

Growth of Political Parties

The 19^th century was a time of revolution. The “rotten boroughs” changed the population and demographics in cities such as Liverpool and Manchester. The Reform Act 1832 brought about a shift in representation for the towns and the North. The repeal of the Corn Laws caused a massive change as it was the end of the Tory Vs. Whig system and marked the beginning of the Liberal and the Conservative Parties. The working class gained the vote in the latter part of the 19^th century due to electoral reform and a steady increase of the reform acts.
Post First World War- Brought the rise of the Labour Party – The General Strike in 1926
Post Second World War- First Labour Government was established in 1945 with a secure majority. There were man social democratic reforms concerning the NHS, Keynesian Economics and Trade Union rights. This was also the point at which the British Empire began to decline.
William Beveridge promised national insurance from “cradle to grave” which was a golden moment for Labour. However disaster then followed in 1978-79 which the media labelled the “winter of discontent”. There were widespread strikes from many local authorities all demanding an increase in pay.

Margaret Thatcher won the General Election in 1979 and became Prime Minister. The miners strike was the biggest confrontation between the unions and the Thatcher government- she was committed to reducing the power of the trade unions, to cure the nation from this “British disease”. The miners lost and returned to work in 1985. Unions then changed drastically after realising the power of the state.

John Major then became Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party in 1990. The mid 1990’s were a boom period for tabloid journalism as the Tories got themselves involved with a string of “sleaze scandals”. This proved to be too much for John Major who resigned in 1995, to be re-elected as party leader.

Defence Minister, Jonathon Aitken stated he would resolve the problem of twisted journalism with his “sword of truth”. The Guardian reported that he was taking bribes, a claim which he denied, however he was later convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice.

The rise of the “new” Labour was seen as reformed leadership and Tony Blair was elected in 1997. His government introduced the Human Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act, both of which are significantly important to journalists. Blair resigned in 2007 and Gordon Brown took over power. From 2010 to today we have a coalition government, which is formed by Tory, David Cameron and Liberal Democrat, Nick Clegg.