Paper Trail Catches Fire

Who says people don’t get excited about newspapers anymore? Some Swarthmore residents are paying particular attention to papers delivered to their doorsteps recently without their say-so. On several blocks in the borough, subscribers to the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Delaware County Daily Times reported finding copies of News Corp papers — the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post — bagged in orange sleeves with printed inserts assailing the Democratic Party as a socialist and racist institution. Some are not happy to have the extra reading material.

Cornell Avenue resident Sarah Graden, who got orange bags twice in a recent week, said “The propaganda is a voter intimidation tactic aimed at a community known for high levels of voter turnout and volunteering to get the vote out.” Graden’s free WSJ was stuffed with an eclectic mix of unsophisticated religious tracts, anti-socialist rants in something called the Eagle Forum Record, and a long screed purporting to be a guest editorial from the Delaware County Daily Times and lambasting the Democratic Party for a claimed history of racism. There is no claim of responsibility or sponsorship of the material, and none of this seems likely to sway the recipients to change their party alignment this November.

Where does the paper trail lead? Seeing that only known newspaper readers were targeted on her block, University Place resident Dianne Hull considered whether her Sunday Inquirer delivery person might be behind the paper caper, but concluded it’s most likely someone coming around later, since “it would be a career ending move” for her Inquirer slinger. Indeed, a subscriber on another block quizzed her deliverer, who claimed no knowledge of the orange parcels.

In sum, the orange bag propaganda seems to be some combination of trolling, evangelical fervor, attempted intimidation, and the worst possible investment of political messaging dollars. Dianne Hull has another word for it: “I consider it littering.”