It could have gone drastically wrong, but it didn’t … On Friday 9th May the Lincoln Schools of Media and Journalism joined forces with the University’s community radio station, Siren FM to present a “Question Time” style debate, in partnership with The Lincolnite, streamed live on YouTube, on air and with live blogging throughout.
Five European Parliament candidates from the Labour, Conservative, UKIP, Green and Liberal Democrat parties, including sitting MEPs Bill Newton Dunn and Roger Helmer, faced a packed audience in the University’s TV studio suite. Taking the chair for this ambitious multiplatform live broadcast was Siren FM’s Managing Editor and former BBC TV news anchor, Andrew David, whilst directing the programme and its professional standard crew of Media students was the LSM’s Neil Kendall. Listeners and viewers took part via social media driven by a team of student bloggers.
The unprecedented collaborative project was initiated after a visit by a group of students and tutors from the School of Journalism to the EP in Brussels last November. I was struck by the apparent apathy to the forthcoming elections in the UK media and approached colleagues across both Schools to see if Lincoln could provide an opportunity for information and debate.
I knew we had the facilities and we had the expertise jointly between the LSM, the LSJ and through Siren FM. When we were then joined by the on-line newspaper, The Lincolnite, we knew we had the potential to reach and hopefully energise the local electorate, especially first time voters. But I was amazed at how colleagues, students and the Siren volunteers worked together to pull off something we had never tried before – and to such a high standard of production values.
“Members of the audience told us at the end of the programme how much they’d enjoyed it and asked if we could put on more such debates. One 18 year old said how much more he’d learned in that one hour than in the rest of the run up to the elections so far.” said Andrew David,”That, and the sheer professionalism of the students and volunteers working together with the staff, gave us all such a buzz. The event was a greater success than we had hoped and it gives us a platform on which to build as we look forward to the UK’s General Election this time next year.”
The programme is available to watch at www.sirenonline.co.uk
Item supplied by Deborah Wilson, Acting Head of the LSJ.