DFL Eschews News! - Once

DFL Eschews News! - Once upon a time, the Minnesota DFL website was a fairly competently-produced publication; more importantly, they actually presented some news that related to the DFL party in Minnesota.

So look at the party's website today.

I'll start with the technical stuff. I'm no graphics person (you can see that from my website) but I design user interactions - and the site's design is chock full of user-interface no-nos. (And I'll tell the DFL what they are for my customary billable rate). This isn't just nerdy bitchiness - the Americans with Disability Act includes a number of guidelines to make websites more accessible to the handicapped and visually-impaired. The DFL site falls drastically short of meeting many of these guidelines.

But that's fine - I'm not disabled and I am used to reading badly-designed web sites. I'd be happy to read a poorly-designed website that includes some useful information.

So we're in the middle of a very contentious legislative session; the DFL is fighting the GOP on a slew of very serious budget issues.

Where's the news?

Instead, we have a piece by "Dean of White House Reporters" Helen Thomas (read: an old hack who is walking proof of liberal press bias) on the Presidential Press Conference; several shrill screeds about national economic news and tax cuts; a "prebuttal" to the State of the State address (which is pretty old, now...) and...

Not much else.

No positions, beyond the platform. No initiatives. No news.

Nothing!

It could very well be that the DFL's website is the poor stepcousin in the DFL's communications budget - it happens. But look elsewhere in the media; where is the news? What is the DFL doing but sniping at the GOP?

After Skip Humphrey's 1998 debacle, some of us Republicans joked that the DFL was on its way to losing its major-party status (droppping below 5% of the vote). We're probably far from it - but the DFL' tone today, at least as expressed through their webste, is not that of a major party.

(By the way - the Minnesota GOP website is not in violation of nearly as many ADA web design accessibility guidelines)