Your editorial (The News, March 8) reminded me of the Joe Who? headlines the day after the 1979 federal election when the media scrambled to get the back-story on the young upstart from Alberta who had just defeated Pierre Trudeau.
May I suggest for future editorials that you try out the Internet to get the information that your telephone polling is missing? You might have found our local Green Party website with links to the Green Party policies and candidate information. You might have also found that our federal riding is called Nanaimo-Alberni, not Nanaimo-Parksville.
However, I take it as a bit of a compliment that the Green Party “kind of blends in to the scenery around here.” That is much better than sticking out like a sore thumb or being way out in left or right field. Better also than being a “top-spending good, little quiet soldier for Stephen Harper.”
I have always thought that the role of the media around an election was to give serious consideration to the party platforms, provide detailed profiles of the local candidates, cover the progress of the campaign locally and nationally and occasionally declare a choice at some point near the end of the campaign. Did I miss something important here?
Was there an election campaign while we were distracted by the snowstorm? Or is this the new face of journalism? Do you now abandon any hint of objectivity and declare your choice when the first rumours of an election surface? If so, what hope is there for the public to get serious, objective information during an election?
You are right, and this is not a dynamic federal political hotbed. Then again, there is not much dynamic happening anywhere in federal politics.
As you say, “James Lunney probably likes it that way.” Perhaps that is what you should be writing about.
Myron Jespersen
Nominated Candidate
Nanaimo-Alberni Green Party
Parksville
