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In an article Tuesday ("Marge looking at end of her city reign?"), Bob Warner noted that "in the fall, [Jewell] Williams will face Republican Joshua West" in the race for sheriff. That's true, but Williams will also face the Green Party candidate, Cheri Honkala.Check out Honkala's Facebook page.
The fact that the Green Party was not in the primary, or that Honkala's candidacy could be judged a long shot, does not mean her candidacy is not newsworthy.
Honkala is running to shift the focus of the Sheriff's Office away from selling foreclosed houses and evicting people to an advocacy for the poor and middle class who have suffered from the mortgage and financial debacle. Honkala says she will not evict people or sell foreclosed homes.
Interestingly, Williams' posters and lawn signs are not the usual Democratic blue. They are green. Moreover, in a recent debate, Williams seemed to borrow some of Honkala's Green Party ideas. It is to be hoped that, in the future, your newspaper will give the Honkala campaign better coverage.
John Grant
Honkala For Sheriff Campaign
Plymouth Meeting
May 24, 2011
Media Ignore Green Party Candidate for Sheriff
From a letter to the editor of Philly.com:
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3 comments:
If she had widespread support, the media would have covered it. Just because a candidate throws their hat in the ring, doesn't mean that automatically become newsworthy.
I would argue that if there is a third party or independent candidate in the race it is newsworthy if you are writing a story on the candidates in that race. To pretend that there are no other candidates than the Democrat or Republican, as is standard practice in the political press, is one of the primary ways that the media aid and abet the Democrat-Republican duopolization of our political discourse.
Depends on how you define newsworthy really. It's a catch 22, they're not newsworthy, but without getting access to the media, they can't become newsworthy (well, they technically can, but that's quite difficult without media access). Most of the healthy democracies around the world seem to take a much more inclusive aspect to covering candidates than the US does, regardless of pre conceived notions of "viability" (which the media also manipulates).
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