Election season isn't just flooding the airwaves this year. There's a new trend in direct mail...
Have you heard of the Virginia Independent? What about the Richmond Leader or the Henrico Times? These are all designed to look like newspapers, although they're closer to electioneering pamphlets – the latest trend in direct mail persuasion now arriving in mailboxes across Virginia.
"Candidates are doing the same thing digitally, setting up their own news information sites, not always being completely transparent on them," says Democratic strategist Ben Tribbett. "Or, if they are transparent, it's sort of on a back page somewhere. And I think this is just the era we've entered into where with the cutbacks in corporate media, partisan news is news."
In some ways, it's a throwback to the 1800s, when Virginia had papers like the Bedford Democrat, the Lynchburg Republican or the Richmond Whig.
"The fact that this has come up at this point in the campaign I think is more interesting as far as the methods that campaigns will go try to get their message out," says Republican strategist Chris Saxman. "And I also look at it from, ‘OK, how much is the postage on this? What's the print cost? What's the overall investment return?’"
Will this latest version of direct mail continue? Saxman says that'll come down to whether the campaigns funding them decide that all that hard copy is worth the money.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
