Mercury editor Keith Perch has blogged about the accusations of political bias – from all sides – that news organisations inevitably face during election time. It’s worth reading in full here.

The finest example of the party political paranoia that descends during an election campaign was some time last month.

A Labour tweeter was badgering me, calling me a Conservative supporter.

I was quick to point him in the direction of a letter in that day’s Mercury from a Conservative PPC. He was complaining that I had been biased towards Labour in a story the previous day.

The same day, a Lib Dem tweeter complained that their local candidate hadn’t been fairly portrayed in a story that day. I was a Labour stooge, they alleged. However, the candidate in question had already called me to say how pleased he was with the story. I put the pair in touch.

Needless to say, I never heard from either of them again.

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