Gotta say, the NPA’s strategy or non-strategy when it comes to picking (and publicizing) their choices for mayoralty candidate is increasingly mysterious. There has been a steady dribble of leaks from various board members about who the candidates are. First name leaked was Kirk LaPointe’s, my former boss at the Vancouver Sun and currently a professor at the UBC journalism school and publisher/editor-in-chief of Self-Counsel Press. Then a second name dripped out: Ian Robertson, the former NPA park-board chair. Then, a third intriguing name, Leonard Brody.
As a reporter who’s been through the mill a few times, I can’t help but speculate about this method of dispersing information. Either the NPA’s Peter Armstrong has a board that is refusing to comply with requests for radio silence or there is something strategic about all these links. Can’t help but suspect the latter, especially with the final name dropped to both Jeff Lee at the Sun and me earlier this week so that there could be a little more buzz generated. (And perhaps the NPA is testing the waters with these names. If so, send them your feedback, folks. Your opinions may have more weight than you suspect.)
Well, it’s not a bad strategy, to build up a bit of chatter about who the NPA’s candidate might be. We’ve heard some stuff about the other two. For more information on Brody, I came across this excellent profile of him done by Tony Wanless for BCBusiness — really gives a sense of who Brody is, who he’s connected to, and what he’s done. Somewhat ironically, the article includes commentary from Kirk LaPointe on Brody’s accomplishments and impact.
Kinda fascinating, for me at least, that two of the three candidates the NPA is considering for its comeback are media types, one from the world of old media (though I have to say that, at the Sun, Kirk was the main driver behind a very aggressive effort to be more digital) and one from the new, both with reputations for moving rather rapidly from one gig to another, both interested in the new ways that the public is engaging with mass media and political institutions.