The Daily Verdict
How the Daily Verdict is arrived at
Crikey's verdict on which party won the previous day's campaigning is based on the practical experience that Richard Farmer gained working on Labor Party elections from 1977 to 1990. Described on page one of the Sydney Morning Herald the Monday after the Hawke victory of 1987 as "the architect of victory", Farmer understands the lows as well as the highs. After the loss of the Unsworth NSW Government in 1988 the same paper called him "the boofhead" who cost Labor Government.
What is shown on television is the major component used in judging the daily winner at 60% of the total with the pictures treated as being almost twice as important as the words. The main nightly news bulletins of the networks are put in to the mix along with the major current affairs programs and the two commercial breakfast programs. The weightings are based broadly on the number of viewers with a loading applied to the breakfast shows because of their ability to influence subsequent radio coverage. Coverage on lighter programs such as Rove Live is deemed to be worth much more than even the most favourable mention on the ABC's Lateline.
Newspapers account for 20% of the daily total but only stories on page one and pictures on pages one and three plus the daily cartoon earn a rating. Words and pictures have equal influence. Weightings of each publication are determined by circulation which puts the Melbourne Herald Sun at the top of the influence pile with the Sydney Daily Telegraph ranked second. The influence of papers like The Australian and the Australian Financial Review comes not from their readership but the influence they have on those in the electronic media.
Radio makes up 10% of the Daily Verdict. With the assistance of our friends at Media Monitors who provide the raw data on which the necessarily subjective judgments can be made, we take in to account the two major news bulletins of the day – morning and evening – on ABC radio, the major commercial talk stations in Sydney and Melbourne and the leading FM stations in those two cities. A daily survey of talk back radio around the country is factored in to the calculation on week days.
The final 10% component of the Verdict comes from looking at the stories which make the most read list on the leading web sites which publish such data – the ABC, the SMH, The Age and News.com.au.
Previous Daily Verdict election coverage: