An 8-page campaign newspaper mailed throughout Los Alamos County by House District 43 candidate Lisa Shin is drawing criticism. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com

BY MAIRE O’NEILL

When House District 43 candidate Lisa Shin began passing out copies of a tabloid-sized, 8-page newspaper last Saturday at the American Legion candidates’ forum, several attendees were surprised to see that the masthead read, “Los Alamos Post” because of the name’s closeness to the existing Los Alamos Daily Post online and print newspaper which has been around for almost seven years.

The Los Alamos Post, which contains articles and photos pertaining to Shin’s campaign, was distributed to Los Alamos County households through the U.S. Mail earlier this week and Shin told the Los Alamos Reporter Friday afternoon that it had the exact effect she wanted.

“I wanted to communicate my message in a positive piece of mail and to make sure it was uplifting. I believe that is what I have done,” she said. “I worked on it for a long time and carefully chose every aspect of it to have the maximum effect.”

Shin said statistics show that people usually only view direct election mail for three to five seconds and she wanted to capture their attention for more than that. Asked if she deliberately chose the name, she responded that she was very pleased with the outcome and that her publication had accomplished what she wanted it to.

Meanwhile, Los Alamos Daily Post publisher Carol Clark made it very clear online and in her print edition that the LADP did not publish Shin’s newspaper and is not associated with in any way.

Los Alamos Democratic Party Chair Robyn Schultz said Friday afternoon that she is “disappointed, but not surprised by this purposely misleading, unethical mailer”.  

“We normally don’t see this type of deception in our local races. Since Ms. Shin is Donald Trump’s biggest supporter/blogger in Los Alamos County, I would think she would not want to contribute to, let alone manufacture, ‘fake news’,” Schultz said.