Deputy Sam Mezec
The States of Jersey (the Island's Parliament) has recently begun streaming its public sessions online which attracts somewhere in the region of around 300-400 viewers. This is a most welcome move towards openness and transparency which the States should be congratulated for but will it have the (unintentional) effect of placing more power in the hands of the silent majority and political dissenters, Bloggers, Tweeters, Facebookers and less power in the hands of the mainstream media?
In May this year we published a Blog Posting alerting readers to the latest attempt to shut down political dissent and to keep the power in the hands of the rich and powerful with its somewhat tame mainstream media. Could it be that the ruling elite became aware it might have created its own monster by opening up the island's parliament in this way?
Chairman of Jersey's only political party (Reform Jersey) Deputy Sam Mezec is a young, modern, forward thinking twenty-first century progressive politician who understands the potential power of Citizens Media and how to take advantage of it. He recently uploaded a short clip, to Facebook, of a speech he gave in the States which subsequently went viral. Receiving in excess of 90,000 views, more than 2,000 "likes" over 1,500 shares and 400 comments. For a Jersey politician this is unprecedented yet none of our local mainstream media has reported on it. The only mainstream media to have reported on this is from outside of Jersey in the Isle of Man which can be viewed HERE. The speech has also been uploaded to YouTube which can be viewed HERE. We will also embed it below our interview with Deputy Mezec at the bottom of this posting.
Deputy Mezec had previously agreed to an interview with VFC before his video was published or went viral. We were going to (and have) discussed Reform Jersey's next "Pint and Politics" evening but couldn't NOT report on this unprecedented event and ask questions like "how can the mainstream media expect to remain relative in the age of the internet while ignoring such significant public interest/political events?" Deputy Mezec describes (interview below) the power of Citizens Media as "revolutionary for democracy" and is rendering the mainstream "redundant."
We have decided to publish our interview in two parts and will publish part two, where we discuss the recent election of Donald Trump, the part played by mainstream media and much, much, more.
In the meantime we thank Deputy Mezec, not only for the exclusive interview, but for making Jersey politics available to all and showing there is an alternative, new breed, of politician in the States who do have the interest of ordinary Islanders at heart even if the mainstream media don't want the public to know this. He is still able to get his message out there on Citizens Media possibly even to a wider audience.
A question readers, and the mainstream media, should ask themselves is; "would the MSM have shown such little interest if the likes of Philip Bailhache/Ian Gorst had published a video that went viral?" Whose interests is the MSM serving on the Island?
