The City of St. Louis, where I live, will hold its primary elections tomorrow. As usual, reporting on many of the races is scant to nonexistent. Here’s a typical example of “reporting” on the elections, this from St. Louis Public Radio, and it provides almost no information about the positions of the candidates. You won’t find any meaningful information in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch either. Local TV won’t cover the candidates positions either. It’s amazing that citizens are being asked to vote in elections where it is so incredibly difficult to learn about the candidates. This is the way things are, year after year. This year I decided to do something about the problem.
Based on hundreds of signs appearing on front yards in the Shaw Neighborhood of St. Louis (where I live), two of the Democrat candidates are especially active in the race for Alderman. The incumbent is Stephen Conway. Kevin McKinney is also vying for that office. Rather than rely on the sound-bite information on the yard signs and flyers, I decided to invite both candidates to my house to separately videotape 30-minute discussions of the issues with me. I posted both videos on my neighborhood website, and I have received considerable appreciation from my neighbors for providing this information. My role in offering to produce these videos was that of a citizen journalist. I wanted to do my part to make important information available to voters in an upcoming election.
This was a no-brainer, really. Simply post decent quality videos on YouTube where people can hear from the candidates in the privacy and comfort of their own homes.
