The Election Next Door

KentOnline / KMTV

Look behind the scenes at how local news covered the historic general election and all the eventful build up to the night.

Transcript

00:00Hello, I'm Andy Richards, I'm the channel director of KMTV and I was also the executive

00:13producer for the general election special programme that we did this year.

00:17So as journalists we get extremely excited about general elections, probably far more

00:22excited than the general public.

00:25That can be reflected in the turnout usually is quite low and it was quite low this year.

00:30The way I describe it to most people it's like the World Cup or the Euros for journalists.

00:36I'm Rob Bailey, I'm head of the Centre for Journalism at the University of Kent and on

00:40election night I was the presenter for the outside broadcast at Medway.

00:44I mean obviously there'd been frantic speculation, I mean we'd all been playing guessing games

00:49around the newsroom about when it might be, so of course when that famous moment he steps

00:53out gets rained upon and this kind of really abject kind of statement on the steps of Downing

01:00Street that he was going to call the election, I think all of us were just completely stunned.

01:03And we will have a general election on the 4th of July.

01:06And Kent's very much on the front line of lots of political things in our country.

01:10Brexit's an obvious one with our geography being close to Europe as well as Dover is

01:15obviously a key place with migrants travelling over the English Channel to our shores.

01:21The whole country's gone through this really, really extraordinary five years.

01:26We've seen an awful lot of families that wouldn't have been struggling a few years ago really

01:30starting to feel the pinch, the price of energy, the cost of childcare, these issues really

01:36changing people's lives quite profoundly.

01:38And I think certainly as we emerged from Covid, a brief sense that maybe things would get

01:44better and then the dawning reality that they weren't.

01:47That had become really the defining story in Kent.

01:51We'd had an idea that we were going to do a programme because we'd done it before in 2019.

01:56And we have reporters at all 17 constituencies to bring you the results.

02:05My name is Matt Ramsden.

02:06I'm the senior editor for North and West Kent for the Kent Messenger group.

02:11The Kent group is made up of different strands as a business.

02:14We had various meetings with all the key players involved and we came up with a rough plan

02:19of what we would do on the night.

02:21All the reporters were assigned different counts.

02:23So we were at every count in Kent, 18 of them.

02:26So we had more than 50 journalists.

02:2712 hours of coverage.

02:28And probably if we're completely honest, we weren't as far along in that planning as we

02:32needed to be at the point when Rishi Sunak said, it's happening, it's six weeks away.

02:36Day one, Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Party turned up to Gillingham Football Club to launch

02:41the entire campaign from here.

02:43Kent is very important to us.

02:45It's very important to me.

02:46I grew up on the Surrey-Kent border.

02:48I know this area.

02:49Very, very well.

02:50You know, that was an indicator of what was to come.

02:54We were right at the front there.

02:56We had two reporters.

02:58Rishi Sunak chose not to come to Kent, but we did get a cabinet visit from James Cleverley,

03:04the former Home Secretary.

03:05We had two opportunities to speak to him.

03:09A place for family, friends and the community to remember a seven-year-old boy who died

03:14after a hit and run in Sandgate.

03:16A place, while on the election trail, Home Secretary James Cleverley paid a visit to.

03:21I'm here to have a quiet conversation with Will, away from your cameras and microphones,

03:27and then we'll go out campaigning, do the political stuff elsewhere.

03:30My name's Bartholomew.

03:31I was largely in the engine room during the election, so in the gallery.

03:35I think we did such a great job.

03:37I think we were quite lucky in that Kent became such a heated point for the election.

03:42I remember there was one day where we were sitting in the gallery getting a live feed

03:46from the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, as he was visiting.

03:49We were sitting there in the gallery watching this leader take part in an assault course.

03:53Liberal Democrats have got a pretty good record here in Kent.

03:56Not amazing.

03:57They'd never held a seat before, but Tunbridge Wells was really in play for them.

04:01Our reporter, Ollie, he certainly was front and centre.

04:07How is your party going to strike the balance between recreation and conservation?

04:12It's a really important balance to strike, and the way you do it is you work with the local community.

04:17A year into the job, and within three weeks of the campaign, he had interviewed Keir Starmer,

04:24Ed Davey and James Cleverley, and he just would not have had that opportunity anywhere else.

04:30My name's Abby Hook.

04:31I'm KMTV's news editor, and a lot of my role in the build-up to the election was making

04:37sure that we were covering loads of different stories from across Kent on Kent Tonight.

04:41England scraped through, but are Kent fans still backing them to lift the trophy?

04:46Maidstone murder investigation.

04:48Swanscombe residents fearing for the worst.

04:50Lights, camera, action.

04:53KMTV prepares for largest ever local general election coverage.

04:58And I'm always incredibly proud of the team of journalists and young reporters we have,

05:02all so new, to be able to be up there with the likes of the big broadcasters.

05:09It's a privilege.

05:10It's hard work, but I think we delivered it exceptionally.

05:16How ready do you feel?

05:17How ready do I feel?

05:19With it being next week.

05:21Erm, reasonable.

05:23We've got ten, eleven different locations to be at, and we're asking all these students

05:29and these apprentices to come and help, and I haven't got a kit to give them at the moment.

05:34For me, the big story of the election was what happened with reform, because reform

05:38definitely swayed the vote.

05:40I think if you were to talk to quite a few former Tory members of parliament, they would

05:44have said if reform hadn't been a factor, they probably would have kept their seats.

05:48Maidstone has been under Conservative control since 2010 under Helen Grant, and people here,

05:54the packed out crowd who were applauding Nigel Farage's feisty speech, seem to be former

05:59Conservative voters.

06:00Yeah, yeah, you know, it was cool, I interviewed, actually I did interview Nigel Farage, he

06:04ran off before I could ask him what his favourite milkshake was.

06:07But, no, it was, it was, it's a big reform event when Maidstone is kind of pulling towards

06:14reform in a second place.

06:15So I've just finished on the box.

06:17Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine.

06:19Thanks, Olly.

06:25Understanding our audience, and understanding that the reason why people are tuning in to

06:30us is they want to know what's going on in Kent.

06:32We've got about 40 guests booked, ready.

06:36We won't be able to test until we get to the day.

06:39When the cams start coming in, all hell breaks loose.

06:42How do I feel it's next week?

06:44A mixture of excitement, surprise, anxiety, nervousness.

06:49It's exciting, isn't it?

06:51Exciting.

06:52So excited.

06:53I actually really am.

06:55It's going to be really fun.

06:57You've just got to be able to adapt on the go, nevertheless.

07:00Even though we can plan to the T's, it's all about adjusting on the day.

07:06Might do bed sheets.

07:08Well, this is the Kent Politics Show set.

07:12Next time this is up, it will be in Medway, ready for the big day.

07:18Good evening, and welcome to the Kent Politics Show special General Election 2024 Live.

07:23We did things on the night which will stay with me forever, I think.

07:27Cameron Tucker, who is there with me, is one of the reporters.

07:30Running from the car park into the main sports hall at Medway Park,

07:34where the counting was going to take place.

07:36It's going to be a great night.

07:38It's going to be a great night.

07:40It's going to be a great night.

07:42It's going to be a great night.

07:45It was a real buzz.

07:46It was a real buzz, and I think the team thought I was slightly mad when I suggested it.

07:51It was a real buzz.

07:52It was a real buzz, and I think the team thought I was slightly mad when I suggested it.

07:57But it worked really nicely.

07:58It was definitely a real highlight for me.

08:00Welcome to our studio, where Rob Bailey is waiting in place with our first guest for the evening.

08:03And, Rob, it's over to you.

08:06I'm slightly out of breath, so take it away.

08:09Thank you, Cameron, and welcome to the pop-up studio here in Medway Park.

08:13here in Medway Park.

08:15Yes, some results were a bit ropey,

08:17with feeds dropping out and things like that.

08:19Hi, yes, I'm a new sign-in.

08:22Apologies for just a few little connection issues.

08:25Audio is not wonderful, so I'll be narrating a little bit.

08:28We'll try and pick up the results.

08:29We just about got every result out in some shape or form.

08:33...has won Sittingbourne and Sheppey.

08:36My name is Ellie Hodgson.

08:37I'm one of the multimedia reporters

08:39at Kent Online and Kent Messenger.

08:40And on the election night,

08:42I had the role of covering Tunbridge Wells' election count

08:45at their sports centre.

08:46Oh, no, it was, yeah, it was stressful.

08:48I didn't manage to go live.

08:50Me sitting there with my chair and my laptop on my lap

08:54and there was no Wi-Fi.

08:56So that sort of set the tone of the evening

08:58in a way of what sort of difficulties I might encounter.

09:01I made a quick split decision to film them instead.

09:04And I'm glad I did capture that

09:05because after Mike Martin didn't want to do an interview,

09:09all of us were aghast.

09:10We couldn't believe it.

09:11It was such a sort of landslide win.

09:15And it was historic.

09:16It was the first time a Liberal Democrat

09:18had ever won a seat in Kent.

09:20And you don't want to tell everybody

09:21about how amazing that is.

09:23And I remember listening to his speech

09:24and it was just so mundane

09:26and it almost zapped all of the energy out of the room.

09:29I remember looking at the other reporters

09:31and he was saying,

09:32we're at the end of a political earthquake.

09:35We are standing in the aftermath of a political earthquake.

09:42You've got to take risks in live telly.

09:45And I think this one came off in general.

09:48And you spoke about change there, Lauren,

09:49sorry, Cameron from KMTV.

09:51And we're going straight to Tunbridge

09:53because another result is coming in.

09:57It was a lot of caffeine to stay awake.

10:02I think the later it got on,

10:04the more we realised that this is going to be a long night

10:07and it was good.

10:07We loved it.

10:08I think all of us were so just engaged

10:10with what we were doing.

10:11Feeling a multitude of feelings.

10:13All of them are some sort of variation of tiredness.

10:16It was this constant desire to do this TV,

10:19to make it as good as we could,

10:20to have the guests on,

10:22to utilise our graphics,

10:23to cut between the studios,

10:25to finally piece together this thing

10:27that we had been working on for so many weeks.

10:30And with such limited resource as well,

10:33when you think about it,

10:33when you compare it to the other broadcasters,

10:37we're a small team.

10:38But I think it's so crucial to highlight

10:42that there is something to say for journalism

10:45still at a local level.

10:48And covering the general election

10:51in a hyper-local way,

10:53I think it builds a level of trust

10:55that you wouldn't get anywhere else.

10:58We tell just as many good stories as we do distressing ones.

11:03But that's local telly.

11:04You know, we could be doing a general election one night,

11:07a story about a tortoise that's been found,

11:09and then we could be doing a murder investigation.

11:11So it's important for people to understand

11:14that it can't be free,

11:16that if we didn't do it, who would?

11:19People should be encouraged

11:21by the quality of young journalists

11:24who are still, for some reason,

11:27wanting to do that as their career.

11:30I hope people can recognise

11:32that it is an important part of our society

11:35and the information that we deliver to them is vital.

11:39And people do care.

11:41And people do care.

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