Agency Email Alerts And Bulletins Down Sharply During Shutdown

Source: 
Author: 
Coverage Type: 

Mass e-mails from government agencies to citizens have dropped by more than four-fifths during the partial government shutdown that was sparked by a budget impasse Oct. 1, 2013.

The company GovDelivery manages e-mail alert and bulletin systems for about half of federal agencies, ranging from science agencies’ newsletters to storm alerts from the National Weather Service. During the last full week before the shutdown began, GovDelivery’s systems sent more than 650,000 government e-mails to more than 66 million subscribers on behalf of 170 federal organizations, according to figures supplied by the company. During the week of Oct. 6, when the shutdown was in full swing, GovDelivery sent fewer than 1,200 emails to just 17 million subscribers from fewer than 75 federal organizations, the company said. The organizations that continued to send messages were mostly within the Defense and Homeland Security departments or the military services, GovDelivery spokeswoman Michelle Musburger said.


Agency Email Alerts And Bulletins Down Sharply During Shutdown