Election day is tricky for newspapers. Since it is arguably the biggest day all year and since there’s not much of interest that we can legally report.
One hack says: Only budget day rivals election day for pure tedium. I’m with him.
Broadcasters are barely supposed to even mention the election, except in the vaguest terms.
So the broadcasters will be particularly keen on story ideas or leads that are non-election related. (These will most likely have been pitched well ahead of polling day.)
Newspapers will mostly be able to fill their columns as usual and tomorrow on the business pages they will have Lagarde’s first meeting at the ECB to get their teeth into.
The challenge for the business desks, as ever, will be staying alert to people smuggling out bad news under the cover of the election.
As a tactic, I can’t see that this works very often (but maybe we miss it when it does, as intended).
What might be good are a list of potential business winners and losers. Which hedge funds are set to win or lose big when the results come in?
Which CEO is about to find his strategy vindicated/completely destroyed?
