I continue to be fascinated by the e-mail missives sent out by Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder as he bypasses the Mainstream Media to take his case to the public. His weekly “Visions” newsletter contains data that often gets filtered out in space-constrained news stories, as well as video sound bites that the televisions don’t have time to run. The merits of his arguments aside, the newsletter is one of the more sophisticated uses of digital media that I’ve seen employed in Virginia government. More savvy, even, than the communications coming out of the Governor’s office.
Today’s edition is a good example. The Wild One takes after his nemesis, the Richmond School Board, for failing to provide handicapped access at city schools. Local news media had recently profiled a disabled child who cannot attend Fox Elementary School, the school nearest to his home, because money earmarked for design work to provide for an elevator had been spent for other unnamed projects.
Since 1992, the year the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, according to the newsletter, the city has provided the school system with $125 million in Capital Improvement Plan funding. A 2005 study put the cost of making ADA improvements for city schools at $18,354,500. But the school board had set aside no money in either fiscal 2007 or 2008 for ADA.
The minute-long video clip is vintage Wilder: “If the people of the city of Richmond are satisfied with the waste and the inefficiency in the school system, after I have pointed out and shown what is needed to be done … if they’re satisfied with the school board, then I’m satisfied too.”
As Mainstream Media continue to retrench, is this is the future of political communications? Electronic newsletters, embedded with video clips …. filtered through blogs?