It is the kind of clever inversion of a well-known phrase that I wish I’d thought of and used in the JEP because it helps to explain precisely why this newspaper now offers such a broad range of opinion. The daily comment pages are there to challenge, stimulate and, perhaps on occasion, offend by offering very different points of view. A society which stops listening to contrary voices has lost its confidence and its way.
In the age of Facebook and Twitter, it is more important than ever that the JEP offers a platform to a wide range of views. Social media has – because of a natural instinct to gravitate towards those of a similar viewpoint and because algorithms serve up content that tends to affirm user bias – created echo chambers in which group-think goes unchallenged.
The JEP is very lucky to have many columnists who are prepared to contribute to public debate, and to accept the consequences, good and bad, which inevitably come with sticking one’s heads above the parapet. They contribute for a host of reasons, not least because they enjoy the process of writing a concise argument and have something to say.
Although these people echo strands of opinion which exist as both majority and minority views in the Island, and despite the fact that they have very different backgrounds and experiences, the comment pages do not reflect the diversity of our readership as much as they might.
For the past fortnight, I have been repeatedly asked by a reader why there are not more female voices on the comment pages. It is a good point. The question could equally have been asked about people of colour or other minority groups in Jersey. The answer is simply that we have not yet found those people, and it is not for want of trying.
As editor, I am always looking for new voices to help make sense of an ever more baffling and complex world, to help us hold authority to account, to challenge and to entertain.
This is an open invitation to readers to contact me if they would like to be considered for a column. If you have something to say and think that you can add sense rather than noise to public debate in Jersey, please get in touch. Email me at editorial@jerseyeveningpost.com.
Andy Sibcy, JEP editor
