Instead of being helped by the expected reasoned, researched assessment of what each candidate stood for, readers found it was nothing more than a paid Advertising Feature funded by the candidates themselves.
Many of the candidates who paid, felt they had no choice. It was a case of pay up or no publicity. At this critical point in the election campaign, candidates desperate to have their voice heard, were forced by Chronicle policy to pay an outrageous price for the privilege. The candidates missing from the feature, apart from a photo on the cover, either refused to come to the party or could not afford the price.
The members of the public who wanted to fairly assess all the candidates were also duped into buying this edition. Nowhere in the pre-publicity blurb published in the APN owned Chronicle, Observer or Maryborough Herald did it mention the feature was a paid advertorial.
In such a diverse region it is difficult for candidates, even some with experience, to build a public profile without fair and equal access to the daily news pages to voice their points of view. To starve some candidates of oxygen, unless they pay, and give free access to others is nothing short of a scandal.
Cr Sue Brooks (click comments under "Bringing up the rear: The also rans" story) said she paid $583.33 for the smallest size advertisement but prices ranged up to $2048.65. The bigger the paid advertisement, the bigger the editorial.
Surely the generated extra sales of a newspaper genuinely interested in fostering democracy would have covered the cost of printing a free and thorough in-depth look at all the candidates.
No comments:
Post a Comment