John Dale, former national newspaper investigative reporter and magazine editor, believes he has invented - or stumbled across - a new television format: constituency TV.
Dale launched a Facebook page and a YouTube channel called Brentford TV. Now he has transformed them into campaign-specific outlets in the run-up to the May 2015 general election.
“Like all good ideas, it was something of an incremental process,” says Dale. “I realised that Brentford and Isleworth was a swing constituency and that local media – both print and online – were constrained by limited resources.
“So I thought I’d give voters the chance to know more about candidates. People who’ve seen the first reports have been astonished. They can see a candidate in an entirely new way by watching them being scrutinised as never before”.
One of Dale’s first interviewees was Brentford’s Conservative MP, Mary Macleod. He confronted her at a local food bank by asking how “a Tory MP who votes for slashing welfare benefits” copes with visiting a place that “feeds the poorest of her constituents?”
He says: “Mary Macleod has never been shown to her constituents in this manner. She’d never been questioned like this. In the past, all people got were a few shiny leaflets and photo-shopped pictures.
“Brentford TV offers much more than that, a new form of hyperlocal journalism. It is a big step for local democracy”.
He stresses that he will be non-partisan. His next plan is to accompany Macleod and her Labour rival, Ruth Cadbury, on a visit to shops along Brentford High Street.
So far, they - plus a Green, Daniel Goldsmith - are the only declared candidates for the west London constituency. Like the voters, Dale is awaiting announcements from the Lib-Dems, Ukip and other fringe parties. All will find the polite but persistent Dale on their tails.
He sees Brentford TV as a service to residents in a constituency noted for its ethnic mix and widely differing wealth. One area boasts houses sold for as much as £10m while there are other districts with people on the poverty line.
Dale’s invention of constituency TV coincides with his journalistic reinvention. He spent 20 years up to 2011 as editor-in-chief of Take A Break, Britain’s largest-selling women’s magazine.
While there, he showed his interest in electoral politics by launching three political parties, such as Voices for Women, mums4justice and Mums’ Army.
Before his magazine editing, he was a freelance investigative reporter for seven years, having had reporting stints with the Observer and, from 1968-1977, with the Daily Mail (where, full disclosure, we were colleagues).
To achieve his latest Brentford TV role, he bought a camcorder and taught himself how to edit footage, proof that old journalists can learn new digital tricks.
He is hoping to set a trend in constituencies across Britain: “Maybe this will set a precedent and other people like me – especially veteran journalists – will follow suit”.
