Session 4: THE 2004 ELECTIONS SESSION

The bitterly fought US presidential election had its first international post-mortem at News Xchange 2004. Senior political analysts from the American networks gave us the inside story on the campaigns and their media strategies.

• What media lessons learned from other elections around the world?
• Are young voters being turned on or switched off?
• How are broadcasters handling the demands of minority and fringe parties?

Session ChairAlastair Stewart, Presenter, ITN

Confirmed Featured Speaker: Wolf Blitzer, Anchor, CNN, USA; Robert Greenwald, Producer/Director, "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the War in Iraq" and "Outfoxed", USA; Jonathan Munro, Deputy Editor, ITV News Network, UK; Christine Ockrent, Producer/Anchor, France Europe Express, France 3; Nick Robinson, Political Editor, ITV News, UK; Alison Stewart, anchor, MSNBC and former political reporter/producer, MTV "Choose or Lose", USA; Morgan Tsvangirai, President, Movement of Democratic Change, Zimbabwe; Peter Verlinden, Producer, VRT, Belgium; Shawnta Walcott, Communications Director, Zogby International, USA; Dorota Warakomska, Deputy Director for News & Current Affairs, TVP Poland; Bill Wheatley, Vice President, NBC News, USA;

Produced by Nick Rabin, ITN

Alastair Stewart: Welcome to Vote 2004. Like all good election programmes we'll be live to various locations, we'll have state of the art graphics, top analysis, the result of our own 'entry' poll rather than exit poll but first of all let's put into some context with this VT.

(Runs VT)

Alastair Stewart: And good bye indeed to you Ma'am! Now we've structured this session with an opening reflection on the recent US elections, then the European Parliament elections, we explore southern Africa, and the striking differences between South Africa and Zimbabwe, how we deal with the extreme right in elections in daily political coverage as well as the big events, when in some countries people back the extreme right whereas broadcasters are told by the courts that we have to ban them, the problems of disenchanted youngsters and finally the vexed issue of what has become known as 'Foxification' a point that Richard Sambrook wrote eloquently about in his welcome notes in the handbook. But I think that two particular issues should, I hope, dominate your thoughts but of course it's entirely up to you. To what extent is there any responsibility at all on the shoulders of broadcasters to encourage increasingly lethargic voters to go and exercise their democratic rights? And secondly how impartial are we, how impartial can we be today? As I said earlier on in the promo, what my colleague from Egypt described as the 'cherry upon the cake': how objective can we be? So let's start first of all with the recent $billion visit to the polls in the USA, Wolf Blitzer joins us now from Washington DC. Wolf has been a Whitehouse correspondent, covered campaigns and anchored CNN's election night coverage. Wolf there was incredible caution on the night what was it like for you?

Wolf Blitzer: It was an exciting night for all of us. We went into that night with those early exit polls suggesting that John Kerry had a slight lead. It looked like maybe he could surprise a lot of people and take the election based on the exit polls but I was cautious all afternoon. Our senior political analyst Bill Schneider cautioned all of us around four or five o'clock in the afternoon, 'these are exit polls there could be a significant margin of error, don't necessarily go to the bank with them' and we didn't. We never broadcast, we never reported on any of the exit polls and we waited for the formal polls to close before we made any projections, we were cautious all night given the debacle of what happened four years earlier with the mis-calling of the state of Florida. So it was an exciting night, it was a night that I think all of us in the broadcast world wanted to err extremely on the side of caution, we didn't want to have to at some point later in the night say, 'you know what we got it wrong here's what's really going on'.

Alastair Stewart: The issue of voter registration and turnout was absolutely crucial, in the sense that Bush needed it to consolidate, Kerry needed it if he was going to break through. With that in mind how would you characterize now with the benefit of hindsight the CNN campaign coverage?

Wolf Blitzer: I think our campaign coverage was solid. Look, this is the first draft of history, and certainly there are moments when we could say we should have done this or we could have done that but I think we were pretty thorough and our CNN/USA Today Gallop numbers were pretty much on board too. Given the three or four per cent usual margin of error, I think all the national polls had it within that margin of error but a lot of people forget that there is a three, four sometimes even five per cent margin of error and they think these polls are sacrosanct for whatever reason. I think on the whole we saw what was going on, one thing I think we might have missed to a certain degree and the Whitehouse and the Republicans were brilliant at this, was that even in the states where they decided the president would carry easily the electoral college votes - Texas for example or southern states like Mississippi, or Alabama or Kansas or Nebraska in the Midwest, those were states that everyone knew he was going to carry - they decided that they were still going to go and pile on and get voter turnout in those states so that the President would get a majority, and he ended up with 51% of the popular vote. And it's certainly one of the reasons why the President and the Vice-President suggest they have a mandate for some important changes in domestic and foreign policy. The Democrats never really spent any money in trying to get that vote, going in popular states that they knew they would carry, like New York or California, important states, big states, but they never really spent a tonne of money there to get the popular vote and as a result, Kerry ended up with 48%, Bush with 51% and Ralph Nader with about 1% of the vote.

Carl Rove, the chief political strategist of the White House was very smart in understanding that if Bush could get 51% of the popular vote, even if it was much closer in the Electoral College votes, that would be significant. If you take a look at one footnote, Ohio, if Kerry had carried Ohio, and he lost by 140-150,000 votes, meaning that if 75-80,000 votes had gone the other way, Kerry would have been elected President of the United States, because he would have got more electoral votes even though he would have lost the popular vote. Gore won the popular vote in 2000 by half a million votes, but lost the Electoral College votes.

Alastair Stewart Thank you very much indeed. John Kerry was on the television yesterday saying that the votes in Ohio are still being counted so hope springs eternal! ITN's political editor, Nick Robinson, toured the US on behalf of our network back home, in a bus I think they put you in, a campervan I believe. Do you think the American networks let the candidates off the hook on the domestic issues, as it were? Hiding behind the excuse of the war on terror?

Nick Robinson I think there was a danger, and is a danger in all our coverage - I hesitate to lecture anybody else about theirs Alastair - but we allow the horse race to dominate and those people that end up on the campaign buses with the candidates nod, are focused on the tiny nuance, a phrase here or there, the latest negative ad, and they are broadcasting into people's homes who have no idea of where in the country they are, and the reporters give the sense of not knowing either and that they seem to obsess about a level of detail in terms of this horse race, or if you like, boxing match that is going on, that doesn't relate to ordinary people's lives. Certainly, security in my view was the defining issue, and rightly so, of that American election, and was the one that won it for Bush. But yes, I'm sure it was a danger that they found, and it's one that we're aware of in Britain too, that you obsess about one issue and ignore the rest.

Alastair Stewart And as you travelled around middle America Nick, picking up on that point that Wolf Blitzer made, did you sense that the big parties had done the sums in the electoral college and decided there were great swathes of the USA where they didn't need to go, they didn't need to spend and those people were excluded from the process of the campaign, if not from the process of the election?

Nick Robinson There's no doubt that that happened, if you talk to people on either coast, then you know that's the case. I was travelling through old cowboy country, through the west, through Colorado, through New Mexico and through Arizona, these are states with small numbers of electoral college votes and would be ignored if the race had not been very very close, but by coincidence as we landed in Denver, so did George Bush, and the next day we got John Kerry as well. They came and they came repeatedly to those states, desperate as they were to get it out, but I think we will see a repeat of this in a British election campaign where resources are focused on the marginal or key or swing states. The Conservative Party here in the UK has just hired the services of one Linton Crosby who worked for John Howard the Prime Minister of Australia, what was his lesson? Only pay attention to marginal voters in marginal states, say nothing to anybody else and use modern technology, to use direct mail, to use direct phone banking and so on and so forth. Not necessarily us in the broadcast, broad mass media Alastair, get under the line, as they say, to those voters and again it's something we've all got to watch out for.

Alastair Stewart: Thanks very much for that Nick. Christine Ockrent from France 3, is with us. I'm delighted, and thanks very much for joining us.

Christine Ockrent: Thank you Alastair.

Alastair Stewart: You also spent a lot of time in the United States of America watching that campaign unfold. Senator Edwards the Democrats' vice presidential candidate said that there was a domestic issue shut-out, the result might have been different if it had been fought on health, education, welfare and the deficit. Did you sense that?

Christine Ockrent: Well certainly the themes that John Kerry tried to insist upon in the beginning of his campaign which was a very long one as we all remember and it seems very strange to look at those pictures again. But as I recall from March until June the Democrats tried very much to insist on the economy, on health, on social security....

Alastair Stewart: And you heard that insistence on the networks?

Christine Ockrent: Yes to a point but back in France first of all the networks started covering the campaign rather late and then as usual they insisted on the folklore rather than the real issues of a campaign which in my view was much more interesting than it was made out to be by some of the continental European media.

Alastair Stewart: Alright, one American view, two European views there, I want to move it on because we did start a little bit late, so I'm looking into the audience to see if there's an American voice that wants to come in at this stage. If not I'm going to move it on into Europe but anybody who feels anything on the basis of what Wolf Blitzer and Nick Robinson or Christine Ockrent have just said do feel free to come in now.

Bill Wheatley (NBC): I think one of the remarkable things about this past campaign was how few minds were changed over the months, it ended up 41-58 as Wolf Blitzer has indicated. But months before almost everyone in the US had made up his or her mind and it shows how little influence the presidential debates had, how little it changed under intense coverage of the issues...

Alastair Stewart: Polls didn't suggest that or do you dismiss the polls?

Bill Wheatley: No...

Alastair Stewart: Polls said there was a big surge for Kerry after the debates.

Bill Wheatley: There was a temporary surge but in terms of how it had been pretty much all along, Kerry was up, Kerry was down but towards the end very few people changed their mind and of course the entire effort was to get a handful of people to change their mind.

Alastair Stewart: Let me butt in briefly there because it takes us to our next segment as well. To what extent - and you can only speak on behalf of your own network but obviously you talk to friends and colleagues as well - was there an effort on behalf of the networks just to get the vote out, whether they be Democrats, Republican or 27 other individual candidates, was that ever on the agenda?

Bill Wheatley: No I don't think that networks are traditionally in the business of urging people to vote. What we do is provide them with the information they need. But what we did do because the history of voting irregularities and the absolute mess for procedures for voting in the US is a number of networks including our own did extensive reporting on those problems. We did it under the 'making your vote count' banner and that continued right through election day and indeed after.

Alastair Stewart: Alright we'll come back to those themes if that's the way you want to go, but let me just broaden it as I said I would to Europe. Five months before the US election, with its population of nearly 280 million, another international grouping, the European Union, with its population of nearly 300 million, made up of 25 individual states (and there's a good argument about that as well) they had the opportunity to elect a European Parliament. Did they go to polls? No! Not to a great or bombarding degree. What is intriguing is that among those countries that were able to go to the polls for the first time was Poland. With the thoughts of Lech Walesa, Solidarity, Gdansk still fresh and burning in their minds, raring to exercise their democratic rights: one of the lowest turn-outs across Europe was witnessed in Poland, why, wherefore? We'll be discussing that in a moment but first let's just join anchor Mary Nightingale with some intriguing graphics that illustrate precisely that difference, Mary.

Mary Nightingale: Across much of the world voter apathy is certainly an issue. As more and more of us win the right to express our views via the ballot box it seems that fewer of us actually exercise that right. But as we saw in the US earlier this month a high turnout leads to a clearer result and mandate. As we now know George Bush won with 51% of the vote, that's more that 59 million people putting their cross next to his name and that broke all records. Almost 60% of registered voters in the US actually went to the polls and in some cases queued for hours to vote. Getting the vote out was one of the key strategies from both sides and the figures show that they were successful but that kind of voter enthusiasm is not the norm. Let's take another set of elections those for the European Parliament earlier this year, for example Poland a relatively new democracy and there the people had their first opportunity to vote as a member of the European Union. A long awaited chance to be a part of Europe? Well the turnout in Poland for those elections was just 20%, much better though than Slovakia another new member of the EU, where they achieved a record low of just 17%. As was shown in America, politicians of every hue would dearly love to tap into that silent minority or in some cases silent majority. And of course the more people that use these, the more representative any democratic government actually is. So why is it then that America managed to buck the global trend and for much of the world the question actually remains; whose job is it to mobilise a reluctant electorate?

Alastair Stewart: Mary Nightingale there. Now Dorota Warakomska, from Poland's TVP joins us now live from Warsaw. Dorota were broadcasters at fault, should you have encouraged more participation explaining that the European Parliament isn't just a talking shop but also controls the appointment of the Commission that became a lively issue, controls the budget that is still a burning issue? Do you take any blame for that or is up to the Poles to do what they want to do?

Dorota Warakomska: Well the turnout is a really important issue in Poland and I have to say that the Presidential election usually draws rather more attention from voters in Poland maybe because people vote for the important office, the well known face and personality. It might be interesting to add that there were 11 presidential candidates in Poland, the record high turnout was 65% in the 2^nd round of the presidential election in 1995, when the president Lech Walesa lost and Mr Kwasniewski won and he is still the president of Poland. But parliamentary elections usually attracts less voters mainly because of the Polish electoral system where you vote for a party list not for a particular candidate. The turnout is usually about 45-50% when we think about 80% turnout in Denmark or 73% in Hungary we envy them but of course a much lower turnout was observed in June during elections to the European Parliament. Poland, by far the biggest new member of the EU, turned out to be one of the least enthusiastic about the polls. Only about 20% of voters bothered to cast a ballot. As you mentioned before, it was the second lowest turnout in Europe after Slovakia. And of course the turnout was highest in big cities like Warsaw where campaign posters could be seen on almost any street but it was definitely a wakeup call, a red card shown to politicians in Poland, I don't think the media, and it was additional proof that people are distancing themselves from politics. It is true that Poles have become increasingly suspicious of their politicians since the Solidarity trade union helped overthrow the Communist authorities in 1989. It is interesting that in 1989 the most interesting parliamentary elections as you probably know brought 65% of voters. People say that during Communism the turnout was much higher, 99% but that was the figure provided by the Communist government of course. Political analysts say that the main reason for the low turnout is the general discontent with politicians and the voters did not think that the elections really mattered to them. The European parliament is very remote and it's true that since 1989 successive governments have been hit by corruption scandals. With the high unemployment rate of nearly 20% many Poles have lost faith in their elected representatives. There is maybe one more reason for the low turnout in the European parliamentary elections and that is Poland is getting used to the idea of being in the club. Poles don't see themselves as taking part in European affairs and being co-deciders yet, so they didn't see the elections as exercising their democratic right on the European scale. Another reason for the lack of interest is the lack of effort put into the campaign compared to the referendum to join the EU in June 2003. At that time nearly 59% of Poles cast ballots in that vote with 77% voting yes for joining the EU. But the very important point is that last year there was a very important action by the country leaders to convince the voters that their vote is important to join the EU, to make the referendum valid we needed 50% turnout, political leaders and showbiz stars, intellectuals even the Church was urging everybody in the nation to get up and vote and we really succeeded.

Alastair Stewart: Dorota thank you very much indeed. Wolf Blitzer, some politicians say that low turnout is an indication of contentment on the part of the electorate, the anarchists used to joke and say don't vote it'll only encourage them to go out and do something terrible again. But just over 60% of the US electorate voted, something not seen since JFK's time. Are you satisfied as a senior broadcaster that just over 60% is a good display of democracy in the USA?

Wolf Blitzer: Well I think that people in this democracy, people in all democracies are encouraged to vote. They should vote, that's their responsibility, but they also have the right not to vote and to sit on their hands and not do anything, that is their right as well. I always get worried when you hear about those countries where 99.9% of the people in the country vote and they vote for one candidate. They are scared out of their minds so they have no choice. So 60% historically speaking is a pretty good turnout for a presidential election. The older people get the more they appreciate their right to vote. In the US, I suspect that in other democracies in Europe and elsewhere around the world, the lowest percentage turnout are people from 18-34 years old and as you get into your 30s and your 40s certainly 50s, 60s and 70s and 80s people vote in much higher numbers because they appreciate what they are doing. The young unfortunately don't always appreciate it.

Alastair Stewart: Wolf thanks for joining us we'll be back to you later on. Now moving swiftly from Europe and the USA let me just take you briefly down to Southern Africa. You saw in that opening video the great celebration in South Africa when eventually after all of those years the vote was secured for people of voting age despite race, colour or creed and you saw Desmond Tutu dancing a hop such was his contentment with it. Just across the border there is a different situation. In South Africa the critics say well there's a bit of a problem because the ANC's almost become a one party state. In Zimbabwe it is operating as a one party state and I'm delighted to say that joining us now from The Hague is the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai. Mr Tsvangirai thank you very much for joining us. Now that you've been acquitted and released from house arrest do you expect in Zimbabwe the MDC to be treated any differently?

Morgan Tsvangirai: Thank you. I don't expect that the attitude of the government will change because of anything. I think that intolerance is still very high, they still believe in the one party state and I expect that the same conditions will prevail for a very long time.

Alastair Stewart: In effect the media within Zimbabwe, at least the organs of the media that might be prepared to give you a fair hearing are down to one small newspaper now. What is your plea to the international broadcasters who are represented here today, CNN, BBC World and all the rest of them because presumably there you are in the Hague and talking to a wide cross-section of them, that's your best audience?

Morgan Tsvangirai: Yes certainly and I appreciate the coverage we are receiving because at home this coverage is non-existent because all of you are banned from Zimbabwe and you have to rely on your stations in Johannesburg. The fact is that the media control by Minister Jonathan Moyo has become so obsessed with this control that all he wants to be churned out is government propaganda. Therefore my appeal to the international coverage is that you all need to continue to interest yourself by stationing people across the border in South Africa or Botswana and continue to cover the story of Zimbabwe from there.

Alastair Stewart: Nigel Baker what problems does that present?

Nigel Baker: Obviously over the last two to three years it's become increasingly difficult to cover Zimbabwe. We endeavour to still try to do that but of course it's at great risk to the people providing that coverage because anything that we cover there goes back on the satellite channels and they are in many cases personally at risk. That's the main complication we've had over the last couple of years but we endeavour still to cover it whenever possible.

Morgan Tsvangirai: Of course in a dictatorship these restrictions are expected but I think that what is expected is that the Zimbabwean story is a human story that needs to be covered internationally and of course there is always ways of getting into the country. I've had to deal with a number of journalists who have come in the country, of course surreptitiously because you can't do it openly because they are facing those restrictions. I appreciate the difficulties people face but I think there have always been attempts to break those barriers and cover the story.

Alastair Stewart: Mr Tsvangirai bear with us I'm just going to bring in another colleague, Jonathan Munro who is the Deputy Editor of ITN. You have that problem with correspondent Neil Connery. You have heard that request and demand from Mr Tsvangirai. The cause is obvious. What do you try to do not as an agency but as a network?

Jonathan Munro: Well we've been into Zimbabwe a number of times in the last couple of years, never openly and never with the consent of the authorities. We've sneaked in as tourists and we've reported a number of stories from there, including allegations of torture, rape, pretty hideous stuff connected with the Zimbabwe authorities. The next event there is a cricket tour and the situation as far as that's concerned is that sports correspondents are being allowed in on a very limited basis but Africa correspondents who have knowledge of what's going on in Zimbabwe are not. We are not happy to play that game and we're considering options on that story. In terms of the election the interesting question from us to Mr Tsvangirai is whether people in Zimbabwe have any way of seeing the coverage that people like Nigel Baker and other international broadcasters can generate on occasions even if it is at some risk?

Alastair Stewart: Mr Tsvangirai what availability is there for BBC World, CNN, ITV News Service, any of those, to the people of Zimbabwe? What access is there?

Morgan Tsvangirai: They do have VoA coverage but that is radio, there is SW coverage and there are quite a number of people who have satellite coverage. You know people are really fed up with the state propaganda which is being churned out and of course they're finding alternative ways to communicate. There are local journalists who are doing the coverage and sending their stories out, there are individuals, we use a number of methods to make sure that stories go out. So Zimbabweans know how to deal with a state media which is churning out state propaganda - it is to search for alternative sources of news and information to verify their stories.

Alastair Stewart: Morgan Tsvangirai we wish you well and thank you very much for joining us here this afternoon. As Morgan was making it clear, in Zimbabwe it is a government that is wishing to silence the opposition but in the US there is virtual total freedom enshrined within the Constitution for the free expression of views and representation and they can contest it as best they might at the ballots. But in Europe there is an intriguingly different problem because in some nation states there are domestic laws that preclude the participation of certain political parties, there are some community laws that make that difficult and there has been an intriguing case recently that some of you may have read about or even talked about. That was in Belgium where earlier this month the courts ruled that Vlaams Blok, the party which, as I said before this session started, was judged to be racist. That threw down an intriguing challenge to the broadcasters as to how to deal with that. Was it an infringement of civil liberties or was it a protection of the civil liberties of others, how did it play? Peter Verlinden from VRT Belgium: how did you deal with the judgement?

Peter Verlinden: Since 2001 we had produced some notes in the newsroom about how to handle Vlaams Blok. We had guidelines such as we shouldn't put them on the screen if it wasn't really necessary, of course we can't really hide them from the screen.

Alastair Stewart: It's a bit difficult when 25% of the population support them.

Peter Verlinden: Yes in Flanders, 15% in the rest of the country. When they were condemned again a week ago there was a new note and the new note clearly stated that we are not allowed to produce racist opinion. This racist way of looking at the country by the Vlaams Blok now called Vlaams Blank, we as a public broadcaster are not allowed to produce them only if it is a real news fact, so that is why we are behaving in a very careful way, we are not blocking them but we are very careful about how to put them on the screen.

Alastair Stewart: They make the point themselves and they say the things that the people are thinking and you with the support of the courts decide that the people cannot hear it.

Peter Verlinden: It's not only us but the decree about the public service broadcasters about VRT voted by the Flemish Parliament states that we have to act for a tolerant and democratic society. We cannot break that decree so we are also with the law. We are not hiding the public from their opinions but we are not making propaganda with their opinions, so we are treating them in a very careful way that says that if they are a point of news then we bring the news but we are not making the same allowances for them that we do with other parties because they are not the same as other parties.

Alastair Stewart: OK the final point to you and then I want broaden it out, the impact on the newsroom? If those are the numbers then there must be representation within the newsroom of people who support this party?

Peter Verlinden: That's what we think from time to time as well but of course journalists generally come from different social surroundings. We know that some racist feelings or feelings of discrimination are present in the newsroom but they are not outspoken, of course it's politically incorrect to do this and we must be aware of that. From time to time it's a discussion but I wonder if there are many of my colleagues who would oppose the decree? Who would oppose the guidelines we got from our bosses?

Alastair Stewart: That's an intriguing question. The Front National came through and fought the fight off in the last election in France. Christine, is there a universal belief in France that Jean-Marie Le Pen should have absolute free access to the media?

Christine Ockrent: No, because we have laws all over Europe that we forbid incitement to racial hatred, forbidding revisionist history denying concentration camps and so on and so forth which in France some members of the Front National keep doing and then they have to go to court and either they win or lose depending on the phrasing or the wording of the media but it is true that it came as a national trauma in the last French Presidential election that indeed Le Pen came second and before the Socialist candidate and as a result there is a movement within the Front National to try and be more respectable because these guys also want a piece of the pie.

Alastair Stewart: Vlaams Blok want the same, they reinvented themselves they changed their name.

Christine Ockrent: Vlaams Blok is much more radical, the Front National has become a bit more bourgeois. They run a couple of cities, they don't run them very well and there is a succession fight between Le Pen, his daughter and some other people. So it's not quite the same story and I think that Vlaams Blok in Belgium is much more dangerous so to speak than the Front National.

Alastair Stewart: Final thought from you though. You have a reputation as a news presenter but also as a current affairs producer and presenter. Is it your view that there is any burden of responsibility upon news broadcasters to argue, actively, publicly on the airwaves against what people like that stand for or about the issue of whether or not they have a right to be heard? What is the burden of responsibility on the broadcaster?

Christine Ockrent: I think as you put it it's in between the triangle. Of course I have to invite Le Pen on to my political programme, however distasteful. I have to ask him questions and I have to try to get answers from him. I'm not the one who should decree if he is out of the democratic landscape but I think it is our duty as broadcasters to be extremely vigilant as to the ideas and vocabulary that these people are allowed to use on the air. I think that's where the dividing line might be.

Alastair Stewart: OK let's have a few comments if I can tempt you. I looked at the delegate list and wrote down a few countries and if delegates don't come forward I will name names to see if I can encourage them to come forward where this challenge presents itself: Austria, Italy, Germany, Holland and the UK, there may be many others as well. Are there any delegates from those countries who want to come forward and tell us how they are dealing with this explosion of racism, of fascism within organised political parties? John Glover of Ofcom with a noble career behind him as a broadcast journalist. We move from broadcast journalism to regulation. The British National Party curiously enough rather like the Belgian example used to be the National Front and is now the BNP has councilors duly elected in free elections in may parts of the country and is going to field a slate of candidates in the general election. What are the rules of engagement?

John Glover: In the UK, it sounds like ducking the question, but it is absolutely clear that it is not the regulator's job to tell the broadcasters how to do their job. It's a broadcaster's decision to make these calls. We have a programme code that spells the duty of fairness and due impartiality. There are also the laws of the land on racial hatred and incitement to violence. But how it is operated is the call of the broadcaster - they have to make those judgements. Of course if a political party feels it is being treated unfairly it has the right to complain about that and it will be investigated but we are strictly a post transmission regulator and it's over to the broadcasters.

Alastair Stewart: A better solution.

Peter Verlinden: I just want to make clear that the change of name does nothing to change our policy as a public broadcaster, in the new guidelines that we got from the head of the newsroom it is clearly stated that it must be proved in practice that the discrimination and racist language of the Vlaams Blok has not changed. So we are clearly choosing to look at their practice because clearly as Christine said we are not allowed to give a platform for racists or discriminatory language. I think that's the only solution possible, we have to stick to the law. As long as we do that there can be no doubt among broadcasters what the policy is.

Alastair Stewart: OK I want to pose a question to you Simon Bucks who brilliantly produced the hypothetical. It's election time, it's May 5^th, the run up and it's the campaign. All of the major parties are holding press conferences, they'll be live you'll cover them wherever they might be because we know that's already changing. Nick Griffin for the BNP calls you up and asks, 'why haven't you sent cameras up to my press conference, we're holding an important event up in Bradford we're going to explain the effects of immigration upon social security policy. What's the Sky line?

Simon Bucks: I think it's pretty straightforward. The BNP in the UK is not a major political force so we would make the judgement entirely on news value and in an Ofcom era as John described, and for those of you who are not aware Ofcom is the new regulator of commercial television in the UK. The requirement is on us to make those calls, we would make the call on the basis of the news value of the story, we have interviewed the leader of the BNP in the past purely on editorial merit but we certainly wouldn't cover them just because they were there if that's what you're asking and that is the difference between Britain and other European countries which have got much more high profile far right wing parties.

Alastair Stewart: We'll move it on from there because amongst the membership of many of these far-right parties, not least in Europe but elsewhere as well, are young voters, disillusioned, disenchanted with the older grey beards and political parties that appear to run the establishments. They're recruited on football terraces, they're recruited wherever they may be but they are active members of those political parties and also as was pointed out in other contributions earlier on in terms of a disenchantment to vote it is also very strong amongst youngsters so let's just hear the voice of youth now of what their views are about politics and what we seek to do about it.

(Runs Tape)

Alastair Stewart: Out of touch, full of propaganda, same old promises but I still vote because it matters. Alison Stewart is now an anchor and reporter for MSNBC but was heavily involved in MTV's 'choose or lose' campaign ahead of Bill Clinton's first election victory and I'm delighted to say that Alison joins us now as you can see from MSNBC in New Jersey. You chose, and your colleagues chose to actively encourage youngsters to go out and vote, you've heard as we just have those mixed opinions. To what extent were they responsive to that campaign?

Alison Stewart: Well I can't believe that it was 12 years ago that we started the 'choose or lose' campaign. The one thing we always knew when we were working at MTV was that our viewers told us what was important, we never presupposed that we would go out to them and say that we want you to talk to us about economy, taxes whatever it was. It was always 'what has meaning in your life?' and 'what is important in your life?' and 'what do you need to hear and what do you need us to provide you in terms of we're going to be your news outlet'? MTV had decided at the time that we were going to cover 'what you want' so when you talked to somebody, a young voter or maybe just anybody, and you let them have a voice, it made a huge amount of difference versus 'hi, we're the media, we're the newspeople and we're going to tell you what's important'.

Alastair Stewart Put the issues to one side because clearly they emerge from that conversation between MTV and its audience. The decision before that to say that this is something we're going to actively encourage, there was a similar campaign in the UK which Mo Mowlam was involved in. 'Rock the Vote'. That decision in itself was crucial and broadcasters here have said 'no, no, no, it's ours to report and ours to observe but not to encourage'. What was the argument or the logic that swung it for you and colleagues to say no, we'll get out there and we'll kick butt?

Alison Stewart Well, it was kind of an interesting way it developed. It really came out of something that was very organic. We have all these people, we go out and do these stories and you see people that are signed up to be part of Greenpeace or these kids that are really concerned about the environment or they've decided that they want to talk about reproductive rights. They were really politically involved but they didn't care about politicians and as we were going out doing our news stories about various things, rock concert, fashion shows, that sort of thing, we saw all this political involvement and when we asked them did they vote, they said no we don't vote, we don't care about that, they don't talk to me. And the idea was that if we can convince these kids that politicians will talk to you if they recognise that you're an important voting block, that was the idea behind it, to get kids to realise you can be empowered, and we'll help you by being your news organisation.

Alastair Stewart Alison, thank you very much indeed. Good talking to you. Now, Shawnta Walcott of the Zogby Polling Organisation from upstate New York joins us. Slippery customers, these kids, they use mobile phones so you can't track them down when you're trying to poll them, they tell you they're going to come out in huge numbers for Kerry and they don't quite do it, it confused you?

Shawnta Walcott Yes, it did. We had expected to see this massive voter turnout amongst 18 to 29 year olds, but we didn't see that. But I do want to mention some of the success stories. Success stories that were done by moveon.org, MTV, Rock the Vote, and other non-profit organisations who decided to add the issue of voter registration amongst younger voters to their overall mantra. It was a tremendous success in the way that they actually organised themselves to put the effort forward and hopefully in 2008 we'll see a bigger turnout then.

Alastair Stewart Let me just pick up with you something that Alison said a moment ago. It may come down to the absolute simple thing that the vox pops showed that a lot of these candidates are predictable dull old greybeards and maybe all those 12 years ago, Bill Clinton was a lively customer who enjoyed his music and enjoyed the good life, whereas John Kerry, bless his heart, was everything that John Kerry was, it worked 12 years ago, but it wasn't going to work this time. It was the candidate and not the campaign.

Shawnta Walcott I think the candidate does play a part in this but also you have to look at the surrogates that were surrounding the candidate as well. A lot of them were entertainers like P Diddy for example, we saw Senator Hillary Clinton get involved in the effort, actors like Ben Affleck also got involved so there were surrogates around the candidate that received a tremendous amount of support from younger voters. It was just a culmination of things that led to the effort not being quite as successful as we had heard it would be and I think it's going to be stronger in 2008.

Alastair Stewart Shawnta, good to talk to you and much more agreeable than standing on the windswept roof of a building in Washington DC at God knows what time it was in the morning! So there we have it then. Up to that point, America fought a campaign, some would argue, where the domestic issues were hidden behind the war on terror, some would say not, Europe had it's chance to vote for these great elections, some of them did, Poland for example embracing new democracy didn't and you heard some of the reasons for that. Youngsters are slippery customers but they're interested if it's issue driven and we, throughout all of that, try to be objective. We try to be honest and straight with people, we try to present it in a balanced way to the best of our ability, and then comes along Fox! Accused of being actively pro-Bush, actively pro-republican, but as the outrage over that subsides, some respected journalists, not least my friend Jon Snow here, would say that actually that notion of objectivity is increasingly difficult to sustain.

We're going to talk in a moment to Robert Greenwald from Los Angeles, who's the producer/director of the documentary 'Outfoxed', subtitled 'Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism'. But let me first play you this clip, which in one minute I think succinctly sums up Robert's argument.

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Alastair Stewart Right, there you go. There's the man who said 'shut up', he said he only said it once and then ran the tape and it showed he kept doing it again. Robert Greenwald, the data actually shows that despite that argument, and despite that film and report, Fox was the most popular television source of information during the campaign leading up to the US presidential election. You've pointed the finger at them and the American viewers and voters love them.

Robert Greenwald It's not accurate that they were the most popular, they were the most popular cable news channel show, but if you compare them to the networks, there's a radical fall off in difference of the number of people so the audience they're getting, remember, by all the surveys and research is an audience that wants to hear its message played back to it, which is a republican partisan message.

Alastair Stewart Bill Wheatley, he says that wasn't the case, but when people were polled, 21% of them said that Fox was their principle source of information during the campaign and as a source of campaign information, all the networks fell behind that. It was different in terms of viewers, but of sources. Do you just shrug your shoulders at the Fox challenge, or do you think that it should be confronted?

Bill Wheatley No, I don't just shrug my shoulders at the Fox challenge, they are a true phenomenon, their influence is being felt throughout the media, they have consistently portrayed just about all television media as having biased coverage but not their own, as such. So no, you can't shrug your shoulders at that, that figure of about 29% saying it was the leading source of information is probably not true as Robert Greenwald pointed out, the networks had far higher viewership but it is a true phenomenon and it's very much a television outgrowth of talk radio in America in which opinion is strident, generally far right of centre, although there is some liberal talk radio in America as well and it is a force to be reckoned with.

Alastair Stewart Robert Greenwald would it be better, would you be more comfortable if, as it were, there were a left wing, liberal balance to Fox, or is there something fundamentally wrong with Foxification in the media as we try to run it in a democratic, liberal, capitalist society?

Robert Greenwald What I primarily object to is their label of 'fair and balanced'. I don't mind if there's a diversity of opinion, I mean there is radio that calls itself right wing, you read the papers and there's the editorial page but Fox is pretending to be an objective news source when in fact they have this clear partisan point of view so part of the answer I believe lies in truth in advertising, saying what they are. Now ultimately I hope that there will be a rich diverse variety of news, some more objective, some with a partisan or particular view but right now, the news in America is being done an enormous and important disservice by Fox news pretending it's something it's not. It's also cheapening news by the way, politics aside, it is also a whole new approach to news, people in a room yelling at each other rather than real reporters going out and researching stories.

Alastair Stewart Jon Snow, do you believe it's a question of what Fox purports to be or is there in the expression and the reporting of opinion that is even deeper and more significant than has just been described?

Jon Snow I must admit I don't lie awake at night worrying about Fox, I think 'fair and balanced' is deliberately to upset someone like Robert and anybody else that wants to be aggrieved. I like Bill's concept that this is basically feeding material to people that want to hear it. People that don't want to hear it don't listen to Fox. I think it's opened up a much more important issue which is, how fair and balanced are any of us? Where are we all coming from? And you see if you think about this esteemed operation here in which we are all talking, it's massively male dominant, it's not giving away any secrets but when I was confronted with my hypothetical, everybody in it was male and I said 'we must have some women' and there are plenty of women in the media but they didn't turn up in this particular surround.

I think that in the end we need to look at how we put any of our television news together, we've got Christine and we've got you and that's it. I'm afraid to say that before we start attacking Fox, we should begin to examine who we are and where we're coming from. I think we should be absolutely clear if we want to put out a male dominant, liberal agenda, let's have a go but let's tell the viewers what we're up to. Management is a little bit more holistic than it used to be, but in the main across Europe, most television management is still in the hands of men, and women are either glam on air or are doing the hard graft on the foreign desks and I think it's a terribly easy target to say that Fox is an outrageous, biased thing, but I think we're all involved in a certain amount of activity which is not giving fair and balanced news because the fact of the matter is that a woman and a man wake up in the morning and view events in the world in a completely different way. Straight, gay or heterosexual person is going to view things in a different way, a black African as an ethnic minority in France is going to view things in a different way. How do we represent them, how do we provide fair and balanced news, we just don't bother.

Alastair Stewart Esther Enkin is the deputy head of news at CBC Canada, you don't have to speak for women but you might want to speak to Jon and his argument.

Esther Enkin I think Jon's point is a valid one and one of the things we're struggling with both in terms of who we talk to and who we hire is that in a multi cultural country like Canada, which really prides itself and is aware of the range of communities, that those voices be at the table for decision making and also for when we go to get opinion, and we go to cover anything from taxes to security that we don't only go to people who look and sound like us. Never mind age, colour, orientation, view of the universe, and I think in the last election we made a very conscious effort to get off the main track and find those people. We didn't have a bus, we couldn't afford one, we had a Winnebago.

Alastair Stewart You didn't cover the polls, you went and talked to the people?

Esther Enkin We did, we talked to the people. We commissioned one poll around attitudes about democracy and about voting and what was important to Canadians before the elections started but we made a very deliberate and I think brave decision to really limit our coverage of polls. We would weekly, in some of our wrap-up analysis, look at trends, because especially in a race that had more than two parties, at best a poll is a snapshot in time, and as it turned out in Canada, not a particularly accurate one. It was a very volatile, interesting and exciting election and so we were served very well by going out there to smaller communities and seeking out a range of Canadians but before I feel too chuffed, we could have done better.

Alastair Stewart So you say in terms of Canada there is a huge diversity, there's also the issue of Quebec and bilingualism, but just take one step back to that basic political balance, where Fox, and you can tune into it in Canada just as well, is saying 'here is a right wing stance, we adopt that, it wishes to come into Canada, and wished to influence that agenda'. Do you shrug? He doesn't shrug it, he's aware of it, but he doesn't think it's that deeply significant.

Esther Enkin I guess I'm just wired to say that in Canada you just have to let the voices that want to be heard, be heard. I agree with Bill that it self selects to people who want to hear that voice and I think in Canada the number of people who would really, that Fox would resonate with, is quite small. I think it's quite interesting that during this American election, the immigration websites in Canada have been flooded, marryanamerican.com, right! So if Fox wants to come to Canada, let many voices bloom - I can't get too exercised about it.

Alastair Stewart You're from CBC as well, you commissioned that idea of getting the bus out into the country to talk to people, we were talking about it yesterday, what I'm intrigued to know is why the traditional approach to election coverage doesn't seem to be working so that whether it's that idea or whether it's town hall meetings or what have you, what was the feeling you were getting as Alison was saying about youngsters in the MTV context? Something different had to be done, what was it you were sensing that led you to that particular approach of covering the campaign?

Claude Saint Laurent Well actually I work for the French CBC, we didn't have a bus either but most of the English services did. What we did was that we had crews following people during the campaign for five weeks, we had cameras like what we call our reality show of news, in fact what we used was the infrastructure we had in the regions to do what we call parallel campaign coverage which was we had people on the buses with the leaders because you do have to cover the leaders of all the parties, but we wanted to see how when they went into town, their meetings or rallies were perceived by people. Were they answering the questions that people wanted to hear answers to, were they addressing the issues that people were interested in? So we had crews and I think this is true for the English crews as well but they didn't have a Winnebago but we did cross Canada and stop at different places, villages or towns and talk to people there and use those people coming on the bus or people already there to talk to people on the ground or in the field about the real issues. So our coverage wasn't necessarily driven by the politicians' agenda but more the people's agenda and I think it worked out quite well.

Alastair Stewart: I want to bring Robert Greenwald back in again. Robert let me just put to you the sense that I have that one or two people have said ok Fox is there, it may be something like a slight irritant but at the bottom line it's not that fundamentally crucial. In your view is it symptomatic of something more fundamental that is taking place in reportage in broadcast journalism or are you just looking at it as an individual and isolated case?

Robert Greenwald No, the reason I spent seven months of my life working almost twenty hours a day on this film was that many of my closest friends work in journalism in the US, reporters, writers, editors, producers and virtually all of them, men and women, and these are people that live and work in the US, talked about the Fox effect and they talked about it as affecting their management, pulling their news to the right, having an effect editorially, and what stories could be done and how they could be done and they also talked about it in terms of lessening resources towards more news, not real news but people as I say yelling at each other rather than exploring issues. I think as one of the panel said, it's partially self selecting but don't underestimate the effect it has because it's making money on other news institutions and management of other news institutions in the US. And remember its qualitatively different and this is a news organisation that gives specific political instruction not a news organisation that may not be multicultural that may make mistakes, that may not be as good as we want it to be, all of which I agree with, but as a news organisation that's run like a campaign with daily talking points and attach memos, and that kind of political approach to the news.

Jon Snow One of the things about 24 hour news is that the people who watch it most are other news desks and other news editors. It has a terrible effect on the daily newsroom life. I have no doubt about that and that it has the effect that Robert says. But I do think that the critical thing is to put our own houses in order. The other day I was unwise enough to say that I was pro European, that I felt passionately about Europe and I was advised by my editor that that was not a sensible thing to have too widely known. Now this is junk because if you are pro-European, there is nothing you can do about it, that is going to inform the way you start your day. If you hear a story that affects Europe or your relationship with Europe, it's no good telling the viewer that you aren't, the thing you've got to do is to say look I may be pro-European but I'm going to make sure I provide a balanced opportunity for the viewer to look at this item and decide for themselves what their position is.

Alastair Stewart Is that sustainable, if you start having senior correspondents who plucked an item like stem cells on your nightly bulletin and said 'look here's an interesting issue' and the ratings boys said this, and Kerry campaigned upon that basis, I'm personally all for it.

Bill Wheatley No, that would not be permissible on our network. I think what Jon was trying to say is that he's a man who has some views and he feels that he wants to level with the audience sometimes about his views so if he's saying he's pro-European, he wants the audience in some sense to know that we encourage our people to do the very best, to play it down the middle and when they do have views to keep them to themselves.

Christine Ockrent I'm very much more reassured by Jon's views about Europe than I am about his views on gender and ideology which I think in my view is not quite the same and I think the most rejoicing piece of news about Fox has been the sexual harassment problems of Mr O'Reilly, that was the only good news about them!

What I keep wondering is how Mr Murdoch who owns Fox and has very cleverly marketed that very strong very strong conservative upheaval in the US, how come he hasn't done the same in Britain. Can anyone answer?

Jon Snow You can't make bricks without straw. The thing about Fox is that they have the bricks to make it on. I don't think that that material exists in Europe in the same way but what this election surely revealed was the truth about America which has been there for a very long time, America hasn't changed but what Murdoch has done is to get in touch with it and use it and deploy it.

Richard Sambrook Just a quick point, the reason he hasn't done it in Britain is because we have regulation which applies to cable and satellite as much as it does to terrestrial broadcasters, so regulation stops that happening. I think the point about objectivity and impartiality, and the two are not the same, and they're often confused, but it's a professional discipline that we bring to our work, we've all got views, we've all got personal opinions, but a lot of us are trained and brought up in a tradition that says you produce journalism in a way that sets that to one side, and that's what impartiality is about. I personally feel that objectivity is more important, objectivity is a journalism based on evidence and on verification of facts, and if you have evidence and fact based journalism, and Fox wants to have an opinion and Air America another, that's fine but somewhere there has to be a firm foundation and there have to be well resourced news organisations because news gathering is a lot more expensive than people think it is.

Alastair Stewart Ok, so you go along with the view that if there's something to balance Fox, then it's more palatable?

Richard Sambrook I think it's fine that the main networks, it's the same in Britain and everywhere, terrestrial news based on those fundamental principles gets a much bigger audience than cable and satellite and those organisations still, by and large, have enough resources to do basic news gathering and evidence gathering and verification. As long as you've got that firm foundation, if other people want to have opinions, that's fine.

Alastair Stewart But here's the problem, whether it's in the USA, France or the UK, traditionally and over a period of 50 or 60 years, there has been a contract of consumption. If you tune onto a network broadcaster in any of those countries and I'm sure in other places, ignore previous communist states and what have you, just take the ones we're talking about, the basic contract of engagement is that your journalists and David Mannion's journalists and journalists working for Christine will give you a presentation of the news as impartial and imbalanced as human frailty will permit. If you go down to the newsstand and buy the Mirror or the Daily Telegraph, or if you buy any range or newspapers, France Soir or whatever it may be, you know where they're coming from and you've bought into that contract, it's a different contract. Fox has fudged it.

Richard Sambrook Of course they have, because it's driven by technology, it's driven by a lack of regulation in the US, there are a lot more channels and blogging is a worldwide phenomenon so there is going to be partial news out there, the genie is out of the bottle and it's going to happen. The consumers need to be a lot more savvy to understand what it is they're getting. I actually don't have a problem with Fox if people understand that's what they're getting. What I have a problem with is people saying that's the way to go, let's forget about objective and impartial news

Alastair Stewart But that's the point, they don't know where it's coming from, it dresses itself in different clothes. Then it's a question of media literacy, people who argue that partial news is the way forward are wrong. We need that foundation of evidence and fact more than ever, if other people want to feed off that and spring off that with their own opinions then that's fine.

Ulla Terkelsen How come there is nobody from Fox here? It's a very interesting principle, how come we are discussing colleagues that are not here?

Alastair Stewart Fox were invited, but declined our invitation, I forgot to mention that.

Bill Wheatley I think the tricky part on Fox is that the majority of their viewers believe that the coverage is impartial, that it is fair and balanced and that even the talk show element of Fox, which is a big part of their schedule and attracts its highest viewership are fair and balanced when particularly the talk shows are skewed.

Alastair Stewart Thanks Bill. Right I have to tell you that in the vote, you voted marginally against the proposition that broadcasters should actively seek to engage in getting the vote out, but only 74% of you bothered to vote!! But that's better than America and that's 3.75% better than Poland and nowhere near as good as North Korea. John, final word from you.

John Owen On the question about Fox's participation, we have in the past two years at News Xchange endeavoured to involve Fox, and a senior Fox executive Janet Alshouse told us there is no point participating in conferences like this where they will essentially be ridiculed, they don't need this kind of exposure, and to Jon Snow's point about their availability, she said that they were available for open viewing in Italy and the take up, if there had been a possibility of signing people up, would be huge. So I wouldn't be quite so sure that if people had the opportunity, that they wouldn't take them up on it. We've made every effort to involve them, right across the board. Their foreign editors, Janet Alshouse, anybody from Fox. Roger Ailes has a standing invitation to address this conference.

Alastair Stewart And there we must leave it because you John more than anybody will be shouting at me. I would like to thank all the participants, there was a certain amount of quietude but I hope all of those that attended found it useful and much more importantly, food for thought to take away with you. Thank you very much, thanks for having me.