“In the past, you just needed to square the BBC, ITV and a handful of papers, and you controlled what people were reading about the election,” Jim Waterson, the Guardian’s political media editor, tells Helen Pidd.
But that doesn’t work in 2024. “You’ve got to go into different places, which is why you see Keir Starmer popping up with profiles in women’s magazines or going on podcasts to talk endlessly about football.”
Jim explains how our media habits have changed in the last couple of decades, how Labour and the Conservatives are targeting voters, and why it’s difficult to see how well political messages are landing online.
Photograph: WestEnd61/REX
Support The Guardian
The Guardian is editorially independent.
And we want to keep our journalism open and accessible to all.
But we increasingly need our readers to fund our work.