Bloggers to Be Part of BBC Election Night Coverage

The BBC Election night programme is, for the first time, going to include bloggers as a real part of their mainstream coverage. They've been watching the US primaries closely and have seen the important role played by bloggers in those programmes. Last year when I was on 18 Doughty Street we found that we were getting results far more quickly than the BBC and Sky because people were emailing and texting us with what was going on. Just monitoring sites like PoliticalBetting.com and ConservativeHome was far more reliable than relying on one reporter at one particular count. So along with Labour blogger Luke Akehurst and LibDem Alix Mortimer I will be at City Hall with Emily Maitliss appearing every half hour on your screen but also live blogging the whole night both on this blog and the special BBC Election Night blog.

The BBC would like us (the bloggers) to...

• Act as an alternative results service- if you can help us beat David Dimbleby, we want to hear from you.
• Find out what's going on a round the country- atmosphere at counts, rumours, gossip, colour- we want it all
• React to what we're writing on our blogs
• Shamelessly fish for and draw attention to other eye catching posts on political blogs- tell us if you've seen something deserving of wider attention
  

And tonight the final London Mayoral debate takes place between Messers Johnson, Livingstone and Paddick on Sky News from 7.30pm. Along with Alex Hilton and Jo-Christie-Smith I will be doing the pre and post match analysis on Sky News and their online operation. More details HERE.