Report 3: 13 – 19 June 2024

David Deacon, Jilly Kay, Brendan Lawson, Nathan Ritchie, David Smith, Dominic Wring.

Dr David Smith is Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of Leicester.

Key findings

• The two main parties have dominated TV and newspaper coverage.
• While balance in terms of presence has varied over weeks, the Labour and Conservative parties have received a similar amount of coverage overall.
• Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have featured in a similar amount of coverage and an almost identical amount in terms of press coverage.
• Reform UK are the third most prominent party in terms of both television and newspaper attention. Leader Nigel Farage has crowded out other Reform UK candidates through featuring in over double the amount of coverage compared to the rest of his party. Farage has received a similar amount of attention in both newspapers and broadcasts.
• Ed Davey has attracted some TV coverage but a negligible amount of press attention. Collectively his Liberal Democrat party has received just under half the amount of coverage afforded Reform UK.
• The extent of the focus on Reform UK is illustrated by the party receiving more press coverage than the Lib Dems, the Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru combined.
• The Greens barely figured in press coverage during this latest week, thereby continuing a trend of limited newspaper attention being paid to the party.

Key findings

• In overall terms the Conservatives and Labour have – together- had the majority of speaking time during the campaign, with approximately two thirds of all quotation time on TV and over four-fifths of all quotation time in the press.
• The Conservatives have enjoyed slightly more quotation time than Labour, but Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer’s near equivalent speaking time on TV has not been replicated in the press where Starmer has had only three-quarters the equivalent speaking time devoted to Sunak.
• Broadcast coverage has afforded the other parties a modicum of access in terms of quotation time, particularly around the launch of each party’s manifesto. Around 30% of party speaking time on TV has been afforded to the Lib Dems, Reform UK, Greens and SNP combined; this compares with a mere 14% in the press.
• Much of the other parties’ quotation time on TV has been very leader-dominated with 80% of Lib Dem speaking time afforded to Ed Davey. The equivalent figures for the other leaders are even higher at 87% (Farage/Reform UK), 92% (Denyer and Ramsay/Green), 91% (Swinney/SNP) and 96% (ap Iorwerth/Plaid Cymru). This is in stark contrast to the comparative levels of 35% and 37% for Sunak/Conservatives and Starmer/Labour respectively.
• Other parties and their leaders have received little press attention with the notable exception of Nigel Farage and his Reform UK colleagues. Their newspaper quotation time makes up over three-quarters of the total speaking time devoted to the other parties.

Key findings

• Nigel Farage has now consolidated his (third placed) position as the clear alternative voice to the two main contenders for the premiership - Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak – who are the only politicians to have received greater media coverage.
• Ed Davey retains his position in the Top 10 and is now drawing similar levels of attention from both the broadcasters and the press. Launching the SNP manifesto this week helped John Swinney to secure his highest ranking yet. The appearances by both politicians in the Top 20 reflects (in the absence of any of their colleagues to date) these parties’ decision to focus campaign efforts on their leaders.
• Only two of the Top 10 are women (both Labour- Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner) while just a quarter of the Top 20 are female politicians, the other three being Conservative Cabinet members Claire Coutinho, Penny Mordaunt and Laura Trott.
• Aside from Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves appearing in the top 10, it is noticeable that Grant Shapps and Wes Streeting have emerged as key representatives for their respective parties. The latter’s prominence is also a reflection of the Labour campaign’s focus on health during the week.
• Reform UK’s Richard Tice returns to the list this week following his debut in the Top 10 of the first report. Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorweth just makes the Top 20 for the first time. The Greens drop out of the rankings following their co-leader’s first appearance last week.
• Three former Prime Ministers (Blair, Cameron and Johnson) make the Top 20 as does Starmer’s predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, now running as an independent against his former party.

Key findings

• The evidence points to a pattern of ‘media mansplaining’ with women’s voices in election coverage being marginalised across most of the categories identified in Figure 3.1.
• In terms of politicians’ speaking time, women account for less than a fifth of all media quotes by politicians (19 % for women, compared to 81% by men).
• The imbalance in media representations of women politicians accentuates existing gender inequality in political representation (e.g., women made up 35% of all Members of the House of Commons prior to the election).
• The visibility of women politicians dipped this week, with only four women making the Top 20 (see section 2). 
• Rachel Reeves is the highest placed woman at number 4, with Angela Rayner at number 10. Conservative female politicians were much less visible, with Claire Coutinho and Penny Mordaunt placing 15th and 16th respectively (see section 2)
• Only one woman of colour appeared in the top 20 this week (Claire Coutinho, Conservative Party) 
• Looking beyond the political parties, women are especially underrepresented as spokespeople across multiple categories: for government, academia, business, pollsters, trade unions, think-tanks, and celebrities. The only categories where they are more visible than men are for media, citizens, and voluntary sector categories.
• All the categories in Figure 3.1 are domains where news organisations can exercise considerable editorial discretion as to their selection of news sources.
• Across all sources in election reporting, the proportion of quotations attributed to women was less than one quarter: 23%, compared to 77% for men.
• Women’s lack of visibility in the media reporting of this election compares to similar patterns found for the 2019 campaign.

Key findings

• In terms of substantive policy discussion, this remains the Taxation Election. Since May 30th, the issue of Taxation has received double the coverage (12%) of the second most prominent policy issue of Economy/business/trade (6%).
• The coverage of Taxation in week 3 has been driven by the coverage of Sky’s “The Battle for Number 10” debate and Starmer’s explanation of a "working person”. Whereas in week 1 and week 2, this issue was covered roughly equally by TV and Press, taxation has been far more prominent in press coverage over the last week.
• This is the first week where Brexit and European Union relations has made it in to the top 10. The Labour manifesto launch – and ensuing discussion of their plans for relations with the European Union – has propelled this issue up the agenda. Again, the press has driven the coverage of Brexit in week 3, with TV covering this issue less.
• The Environment has returned to the top 10, after ranking 12^th in week 2. As with the issue of Brexit, Labour’s manifesto launch has given this issue more prominence, with their plans to establish Great British Energy and a National Wealth Fund to tackle the climate crisis.
• Overall, coverage of Northern Ireland and Irish unification remains way outside the top 10 issues, only accounting for around 1 in 500 of all themes in TV and Press.
• Electoral process issues continue to dominate coverage.  Polling evidence and speculation about the possible scale of a Labour victory have been particularly prominent in the last week.

Key findings

• There is no sign that newspaper coverage of the Conservatives is becoming less critical. Indeed, news coverage with negative implications for the Conservative party in week 3 even exceeded levels found for week 2 (which had been affected by the furore over Rishi Sunak’s decision to leave the D Day commemorations early).
• Negative press coverage of Labour intensified in week 3 after a significant reduction in week 2. However, levels did not exceed those found in week 1 of our sample.
• Cumulative coverage of Reform became more negative in week 3, in part reflecting media exposés of the past political attitudes and activities of some of the party’s candidates.
• Our weekly evaluations demonstrate that press coverage of the Lib Dems and the SNP also moved into deficit albeit by close margins in both cases.

Key findings

• With press coverage of Reform, the aggregate figures reflect the polarised pattern of reporting, with comparatively high levels of negative and positive coverage almost cancelling each other out. More than half of the news items that featured Reform displayed some clear evaluative dimension (positive/ negative/ mixed).
• With press coverage of the Lib Dems and SNP, the small fluctuations in evaluations reflect (a) far lower levels of press engagement with their policies and electioneering (see also Figures 1.1 and 1.2), and (b) more descriptive rather than evaluative coverage when it occurs. Nearly two thirds of press reporting of these parties displayed no clear evaluative dimension.
• In summary, Reform appear to be something of a ‘Marmite party’ in media terms – proving palatable and distasteful in nearly equal measure – whereas the Lib Dems and SNP appear more of a ‘vanilla’ option – struggling to stimulate the editorial appetite and taste buds of the national press.

Key findings

• There is a significant variation of editorial responses among newspapers normally categorized as ‘the Tory press’.
• Overall, coverage in the Daily Express and the Daily Mail reveal positive totals for the Conservative Party and very high levels of negativity for the Labour party.
• The negativity of Daily Telegraph reporting of Labour exceeds that of the Express and the Mail, but their coverage also displays significant aggregate negativity towards the Conservatives.
• Particularly remarkable is the editorial pattern found in the The Sun and The Times, both owned by Rupert Murdoch. The Sun’s aggregated coverage show negative ledgers for both main parties with Labour attracting more negativity. In The Times’, negative reporting of the Conservative exceeds that found for the Labour party.
• The Sun, Express, and Telegraph all record marginally positive levels of coverage for Reform.
• The aggregate levels of negativity towards Labour in the Guardian noted in week 1 of our sample has now receded.
• The Financial Times continues to record a mainly positive ledger towards Labour.
• Labour’s loudest newspaper cheer leader is, predictably, the Daily Mirror.