Conference call
- 3 Oct 07, 03:04 PM
This morning I came in to find a few complaints claiming we'd not covered the Conservative Party Conference last night - and that we'd been fooled by Gordon Brown into leading on a statement about British troops in Iraq. Here's a smattering of the points made:
• "When the Labour Party had their conference the أغر؟´«أ½ chose to spend half of each news programme reporting on it, but tonight, the أغر؟´«أ½ didn't even mention the Conservative Party Conference, and instead focused on Gordon Brown's visit to Iraq."
• "I pay my Licence Fee to have genuine independent news but to not put the Tory Conference on at all is a disgrace."
• "I think you have been caught up in Gordon Brown's spin."
What's interesting is that we didn't receive any complaints from the Conservative Party - and trust me, they would have been straight on the phone if they believed that we had underplayed their conference yesterday. In fact concerns were raised by Gordon Brown's staff in regular calls - they were concerned that what they believed was a legitimate announcement was being made to look like spin.
Editorial choices can be hard, and it's difficult to please everyone, but I believe the Ten O'Clock News did cover the key story from the Conservative Party conference yesterday - with a chunky package and "live" from our political editor in Blackpool. The piece included stinging criticism from big-hitting Tories of the prime minister's decision to make an announcement on British troops in Iraq right in the middle of the conference, and despite the fact he'd said he'd tell Parliament first. Liam Fox, Sir John Major and David Cameron all focused on the issue. They wanted to get across their point that Gordon Brown is playing politics with our troops. Again, I underline, no one from the Conservative Party complained.
The previous night we presented the Ten O'Clock News from Blackpool. Huw Edwards presented pieces on the new inheritance tax policy, an analysis of whether it would work, and the views of delegates. Half the programme was spent on the Conservatives.
The reality is, we have done just as much on the Conservative conference as we did on Labour and more than we did on the Lib Dems.
For me, the key point about last night's story is: on occasion political parties will be more keen to be seen reacting to an event than to be articulating their own policies. When they want to do that at conference time, it is our duty to report that message to the public in a fair and balanced way. I believe we achieved that last night.
Craig Oliver is editor of أغر؟´«أ½ News at Six and أغر؟´«أ½ News at Ten
