I was pretty annoyed at the unfairness in the reporting in the JEP yesterday. We clearly have 9 candidates standing for election and yet the JEP was clearly only reporting on the four it considers the favourites. These reports are used by many of the electorate to make decisions on who to vote for, as only a very small minority of ther population actually attend the hustings (and most of those are supporters of one candidate or another).
The other candidates are loosing the election now based on what the JEP are reporting. Lets take last night for instance. Paragraph after paragraph dedicated to Southern, Syvret, Le Gresley and Ryan and one paragraph at the end that could have just said, "and there were some other candidates who also replied to the questions, but lets just discount them, We don't give a hoot about fairly reporting".
Any one of those five candidates not getting their name up on the chip wrapper along with their views "could" be a good candidate (or if not, we should at least be able to make our own decision) but it seems that the JEP have already decided who they want as the top four. Very bad reporting and very biased towards certain candidates.
In my view, Syvret is being OVER reported, as the JEP seem to be worried that he and his followers will cry foul. The very first hustings in St Martin had one of Stuarts nominators (Mrs Perchard) from St Helier asking questions and then the majority of the reply from Stuart or in relation purely to Stuarts views or past actions. This is a hustings where all candidates should receive equal time both in the JEP and at the hustings themselves and the constables should be ensuring that it is their parishoners that are asking the questions and not followers of any particular candidate.
