wta020413lfandrew01.jpg New Wairarapa Times-Age editor Andrew Bonallack. WTA 03May13 - MILIEU: People emotionally connect to their surroundings and their neighbours, wrote Andrew Bonallack. PHOT
DISGRUNTLED comments from political candidates have reached my ears, about the front page coverage of two aspirants for the Masterton Licensing Trust.
My job is to pursue angles of interest for my readership. My response to candidates is: you better get interesting.
This is the election period, and I have
two particular guidelines for journalism during this time.
Firstly, any candidate is entitled to make themselves newsworthy.
Basically, now's your chance. You're standing for your trust, your community board, your council, for a reason. I hope you're passionate and genuine about it and I hope you've got some ideas beyond the status quo ante. Step forward and tell us some of your ideas. We'll listen.
Secondly, the media has the right - and the responsibility - to seek out matters of public interest with regards to the election, and the candidates running for office. We're looking for angles that, in our judgment, are of interest to Wairarapa, and are of societal interest as well. Naturally, we'd love it if a candidate has some great angles of their own, and tell us about it.
I know it's not the nature of New Zealanders to talk about themselves but, honestly, now's not the time. The public want to know you're more than just a seat-warmer in the council chambers.
And we'll be looking for angles ourselves. That's what we're trained to do.
Newcomers to the political arena tend to garner more interest than the incumbents, because the new kid on the block is always interesting at the start. However, time will tell if they can maintain that interest. Incumbents traditionally have the advantage of longevity and reliability, that sense of a "safe" hand on the tiller, but have they steered the boat ably and reliably? The public will decide on that.
There are ways for newspapers to be equitable when seeking angles.
One way is picking a local issue and checking all the candidates, across the board, on their views on the issue, and publishing those views. Candidates should expect to get emailed questions from the Times-Age and Midweek papers fairly soon - with deadlines for answers.
So candidates: are you up for making some noise, and do you have some answers for us?
