SARAH SMITH - CHANNEL 4 NEWS

Sarah Smith joined Channel 4 News as Scotland correspondent in 1998. Reporting on the first elections to the new Scottish parliament and the first few years of devolved government in Scotland. She now regularly presents the programme as well as reporting from around the UK and the world.

Expanding her horizons beyond her previous base in Edinburgh Sarah has covered international stories ranging from the US presidential elections, the Madrid train bombings (for which Channel 4 News won an international Emmy in 2004) and Prime Ministerial trips to the middle east. Sarah came to Channel 4 from 5 News where she was reporter for 2 years.

Previously she worked as a producer for the BBC - on programmes as diverse as Newsnight, Public Eye and Rough Guides.

Wednesday, April 20

Obviously when covering any election we all have a duty to be entirely unbiased and impartial. And we have to stick precisely to both Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act and to industry guidelines that tell us exactly what we can and can't do during this sensitive period. But adhering to the letter of the law can occasionally be tricky. As I discovered when I went to Northern Ireland to report on the general election there.

I wanted to cover the story of how both the leader of the UUP and the SDLP could potentially lose their seats. For some years now the two largest parties, who previously dominated Ulster politics, have been losing support to Sinn Fein and the DUP. If their leaders are now beaten at the polls by the more extreme representatives of their two communities we will know that the landscape of Ulster politics has finally shifted away from the traditional centre ground.

The obvious way to cover the story was to visit both David Trimble's Upper Bann constituency and SDLP leader Mark Durkan's Foyle constituency. But the law is pretty clear about what we'd have to do when got there: "In a constituency report if a candidate from one of the parties is invited to take part, the other candidates from the major parties and other candidates with previous or current significant support should also be invited to participate."

i.e. If we spoke to Trimble in Upper Bann we'd have to talk to at least three other candidates there. And all four candidates for the major parties in Foyle. I would never be able to squeeze eight politicians into a four minute report. And it seemed pointless to have two representatives from each party in one story. How could we possibly get around the rules?

Our ITN lawyer reckoned we could get away with talking to only the UUP and the DUP in Upper Bann and only the SDLP and Sinn Fein in Foyle - if and only if - we got every party to agree that they would not object to us doing this.

The DUP are so excited by the possibility that they may be able to unseat David Trimble they were happy to agree we could feature their candidate in Upper Bann rather than their candidate in Foyle - whom even they recognise has very little hope of winning. The SDLP took much much the same view about us interviewing their leader rather than a little known local candidate.

I dared to go right to the top when looking for the UUP's agreement. Asking Trimble himself whilst we filmed him handing out leaflets in Portadown. He doesn't like the story about the two party leaders who may be about to be defeated. But he did agree. Secretly admitting they weren't pushing the campaign of their Foyle candidate that hard - as many of their supporters might use their votes to try to save Mark Durkan and the moderate centre of Northern Irish politics. Unionists tactically voting Nationalist - a prospect that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago.

Sinn Fein were the last party I contacted. If they said no now then the whole report would have to be junked. So I was slightly nervous as I explained the situation to their senior press officer. "No problem" he quickly replied. That’s how all the foreign news organisations are covering this story. Just how many foreign news organisations are here I wondered. does he mean French TV? A German newspaper? Maybe American outlets like ‘Time’ or ‘Newsweek’. And why would any of them have to worry about adhering to British electoral law? But he wasn't referring to anyone quite so exotic. When he said ‘foreign’, he meant BBC Radio 5! It all depends or where you are hearing them from I suppose...

Monday, April 18

There was a certain irony to the situation. As the other members of the press had gathered early on an Edinburgh morning to watch the SNP launch their latest campaign poster - critising Labour's record on health care - entirely different health problems were preventing Channel 4 news from being there.

Our sturdy cameraman Graham Heslop had managed to get there to film the whole event. But both the producer Neil MacDonald and myself had been laid low with unpleasant stomach problems. Who would have thought something so innocent as a vegetarian mousaka could have such devastating consequences to our election campaign coverage?

"How much longer must patients wait?" read the poster unveiled by SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon. 'How much longer must she wait?' must have been what she was thinking as the minutes ticked by and still no one from Channel 4 News had turned up to conduct an interview.

Eventually the cameraman - the only member of our team how was functioning properly - came up with a cunning plan. If I asked the questions over a mobile phone then Ms Sturgeon could listen, put the phone down, answer the question as though I were really standing beside the camera, then pick up the receiver once more to hear what my next inquiry would be - and if I was lucky I might just get to hear her answers even though she had to hold the phone out of camera shot.

If she felt a bit daft talking into thin air pretending a journalist was standing in front of her she did not show it. With much grace and good humour she put in an Oscar worthy performance that looked as though I really was interviewing her in person. She even had some of her aides guessing what the questions might have been when they could only hear the answers.

Conducting lots of television interviews every day is a regular part of any election campaign for any senior politician.

But if they are now so good at it that they didn't even need a reporter there to ask the questions - it makes you wonder if we are still vital part of this process?

Tuesday, April 12

My task on Monday was fairly straightforward. On the day the Tories launched their manifesto I was to investigate what voters would make of it in a key marginal constituency. The Tories know they have to win Rossendale and Darwen if they are to deny Labour an overall majority. So they are fighting hard here. And the manifesto forms the basis of that fight.

So you might a imagine the constituency would be swamped by copies. But we found quite the opposite.

As soon as Michael Howard had finished launched his slim line document in London we raced off to the local Tory party HQ to collect a copy of our own. We needed one to show the voters if we were to gauge their reaction to it. But there were none to be had.

Three copies had been delivered early that morning. But they were not for the party - they had been specially ordered for Sky News. We tried to persuade our colleagues from Sky that they could spare one of their 3 copies - but apparently they could not.

A whole box full of manifestos was due to be delivered to the candidate's home. But not until the next day. To get hold of just one copy we had to drive to the regional HQ in Salford (round trip one and a half hours) before we could show it to the voters in Rawtenstall.

Once we took it out onto the streets the document proved to be quite a hot. Even people who said they would never dream of voting Conservative had to admit they agreed with quite a few of the hand-written promises on the cover.

This manifesto could be great campaigning tool. But only if the party can get the copies to the voters.

Thursday, April 7

Imagine a picture of a protestor campaigning for the right to free speech kneeling on the ground being brutally bludgeoned by a policeman with a truncheon while that protestor offered no resistance and simply recites the Lord's prayer over and over again.

That certainly would be an image that would dominate the election campaign. Although it seems unimaginable, anything like that could happen now. That's the image the BNP thought might capture the headlines yesterday and launch their election campaign.

Around 300 of their supporters had gathered outside the Halifax police station to greet their leader Nick Griffin as he turned up to be charged with four counts of stirring up racial hatred. Plenty of TV cameras and journalists had turned up including Channel 4 news.

Nervous BNP party officials ordered over a loudhailer that there would be no trouble. No violence and if for any reason these BNP supporters did find themselves in confrontation with the many police officers gathered outside the police station, they would sink to their knees and start praying.

Printed sheets with the words to the Lord's prayer were even distributed among the crowd in preparation but it proved unnecessary. No conflagration ensued. Not even when Nick Griffin started to denounce the West Yorkshire chief constable in rather colourful language right outside his police station.

The closest thing to any argy bargy came when ITN tried to interview someof the BNP members who came to protest.

An angry party official forcefully stopped us claiming we needed their permission before we dare to try to talk to any of their members.

An interesting way to end the protest that was supposed to be about free speech.