It seems to have escaped The Examiner’s attention that in this year’s Launceston City Council elections, there are six vacant positions for Alderman.
Other than listing the names of the candidates (with one singled out as being a `prominent businessman’, there has been no coverage at all of the majority of candidates.
If editorial policy were that information about candidates in local government elections wasn’t worthy of coverage in a regional newspaper, one might understand The Examiner’s focus on other matters.
Yet large amounts of editorial space was allocated to Mayoral and Deputy Mayoral hopefuls, four of which are standing for Alderman in their own right.
The coverage of those individuals wasn’t analysis of their past performance, or scrutiny of what they are able to offer the people of Launceston. It was simply an opportunity for them to pick up what amounts to thousands of dollars worth of free advertising by spruiking their message in the newspaper.
Lazy journalism at best, and undoubtably unfair to the other 16 candidates offering their services to the people of Launceston, including those who have issued media releases which were promptly binned by whomever is reponsible for these matters at The Examiner.
Another concern is the banner on The Examiner’s website - `Meet The Candidates.’ The link does nothing of the sort, unless one considers giving coverage to just 20 per cent of those standing reasonable.
Even should The Examiner belatedly decide to inform its readership about the merits of the other candidates, it is too late. Many people have already lodged their vote, having received the voting packs at the same time The Examiner decided to publish puff pieces about four of the candidates.
With a State Government election approaching, let’s hope The Examiner can greatly improve its community service obligation to provide informed, unbiased information to its readership.
Tom Ellison
Launceston
PS: The Ex invited candidates to write letters, and suggested they would publish a maximum of 2. They didn’t have any guidelines about not printing those they didn’t like.
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