Politics and the Media Part 3 - Jersey Evening Post
This article is preserved as part of the historical record of this blog. It reflects the author's views at the time of publication. The content has not been substantively altered, although the HTML, accessibility and formatting have been updated to meet modern web standards.
I have previously examined the legal basis for defining a public authority. The Jersey Evening Post may be considered a functional public authority as a result of the following laws: the Jersey Gazette Act 1960 and the Official Publications (Jersey) Law 1960. These laws enforce the public declaration of certain information in the Jersey Gazette and define the publication in which these pronouncements must be made as the Jersey Evening Post. In a previous post I looked at the concerns raised about the JEP by Senator Cohen and the effect of the media on elections in the United States of America.
The following legislation all requires pronouncements to be made in the Jersey Gazette (although this is not the definitive list; there are many more):
- EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES LEGISLATION (BLUETONGUE) (JERSEY) REGULATIONS 2008
- COMMUNITY PROVISIONS (MORTALITY IN OYSTERS) (JERSEY) REGULATIONS 2010
- EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS (CODES OF PRACTICE) (JERSEY) ORDER 2007
- PUBLIC ELECTIONS (JERSEY) LAW 2002
- INSURANCE BUSINESS (JERSEY) LAW 1996
This is clearly a very diverse group of laws and will affect the majority of people's normal daily lives.
Hopefully it should be clear that, in terms of the publication of notices and in each edition of the Jersey Evening Post which contains the Jersey Gazette, the Jersey Evening Post is acting as a functional public authority.
Looking at the level of taxpayer money which is spent with the JEP, this was £334,000 in 2009/10 and £277,370 in 2010/11. Clearly, the economic survival of the Jersey Evening Post is dependent on the taxpayer.
As each issue of the Jersey Evening Post contains official government and legal information, it is unclear whether this has the effect of convincing the people of Jersey that everything which is stated in the Jersey Evening Post is "official" and therefore "true". I, of course, am not suggesting that everything the government says is true; clearly it is, at best, presented in the most favourable light.
There is a further difficulty in that, as the only newspaper and the only media agency not subject to the strictures of the broadcasting legislation, which requires that all reports are balanced and without bias, it has a disproportionate effect in controlling the social consciousness of Jersey.
It would be most interesting to see whether a Court would consider the existing arrangement as likely to cause an incompatibility with Convention Rights, specifically Article 3 of Protocol 1, the right to free and fair elections.
The lack of debate at the last election was evident, as no discussion was made as to the future of the economy of Jersey, which clearly is the pre-eminent issue affecting all our futures. There are other points which I will address in future posts.
Historical Archive Update: This page was updated on 26 July 2026. The content has been preserved as originally published. This update was undertaken solely to modernise the HTML markup, improve accessibility, correct obvious spelling mistakes and grammatical slips, update obsolete links where appropriate, and bring the page into line with current web standards.
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