Study: Broadcasters rely too heavily on vox pops, fail to scrutinize politicians

Broadcasters are failing voters by relying on vox pop interviews and not adequately scrutinizing political claims during election campaigns, a study by Cardiff University has found.

The study examined coverage of the 2021 national elections in Wales and Scotland, as well as local elections in England, on UK-wide television news from March 2 to May 6.

Authors Stephen Cushion, Keighley Perkins and Maxwell Modell of the School of Journalism, Media and Culture found that strict impartiality rules directly undermined broadcasters’ ability to thoroughly examine political pledges.

The BBC’s election guidelines for the first time designated Labour, Conservatives, Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, Plaid Cymru and the SNP as “major parties,” requiring broadly similar coverage for each.

Researchers found that 26.3% of all Welsh television news items covering the election featured vox pops, at the expense of policy coverage or scrutiny of political claims.

Cushion said: “In an age of multiparty politics, our new research raises serious questions about whether the UK’s current due impartiality rules are fit for purpose during an election campaign period. This does not mean impartiality should be abandoned in a Fox News-style way, but the rules need to be rethought to give broadcasters the flexibility to provide greater scrutiny in day-to-day news reporting.”

“The public expect broadcasters not only to cover political parties during a campaign, but to scrutinise their promises and challenge false or misleading claims.”

Because election rules require broadcasters to provide roughly equivalent coverage of parties during campaigns, the authors said the media’s ability to interrogate specific policies in depth was severely restricted.

The report found that while broadcasters provided the six main parties with balanced visibility across TV and digital platforms, “the breadth of coverage limited sustained scrutiny of party claims, policies or campaign messages.”

By prioritizing breadth of party-political perspectives, coverage did not consistently interrogate the depth or credibility of competing claims, the report said.

As a result, over 70% of claims by politicians on TV news received no or limited scrutiny, the researchers said.

Of television news items focusing on party policy, candidate interviews or political claims, 49% featured zero scrutiny, 22% offered only brief scrutiny and just 29% provided substantial scrutiny.

Instead of substantive policy debate, a significant proportion of coverage focused on “horse race” elements such as campaign events, party competition, public opinion and electoral process.

The study also found that the lack of rigorous political interrogation was compounded by heavy reliance on vox pop interviews with the general public.

The report stressed that voices of ordinary citizens were featured far more than those of political candidates, with 164 individual vox pops broadcast in total.

While the researchers acknowledged the value of understanding voters’ real-life anxieties, they argued that relying on vox pops on this scale consumed valuable airtime at the expense of policy coverage and scrutiny of political claims.

The report further said that the short format of these interviews made them a “relatively blunt tool.”

Vox pops were effective at capturing snapshots of opinion and political apathy, but less able to explain the deeper reasons behind views, the report noted.

Despite vox pops frequently highlighting voter apathy and intentions not to vote, the researchers said the interviews did not accurately capture the level of interest and engagement, noting that the election had a record 52% turnout, the highest ever for a devolved Welsh election.

The study examined flagship UK bulletins including BBC News at Ten, ITV News at Ten, and Channel 4 News, as well as key evening bulletins in Wales: BBC Wales Today and ITV Wales at Six.

It did not examine ITV Evening News, which broadcasts at 6:30 p.m. for one hour.

ITN said the report undervalues its total output by focusing solely on News at Ten. ITV broadcasts nearly two hours of daily national news alongside regional programming, and ITV Evening News reaches double the audience of News at Ten, the network said.

ITV News at Ten featured segments on national issues including transport and health in Wales, rural poverty, oil and the ferries scandal in Scotland, according to ITN.

ITV News also provides supplementary digital content, including voting explainers and social media interviews with political leaders, the network added.