First, thank you to EVERYONE who were so quick to volunteer! I'm amazed to see how many energized people we've got on board in only a couple hours time!
Now, some people were questioning exactly what we will be doing. Which is...definitely a good thing to question!
I'll admit, my conception of this was quite simple. Everyone gets assigned to media groups. You read/watch your media. When you see/hear any lies, spin tactics that mask the truth, or ignore a counterpoint that you feel should be raised, you contact that media by letters/email/phone. Present them with the evidence of TRUTH which they ignored.
Quite simply, we're all here for one reason: To make sure the MEDIA reports the TRUTH
Now of course, this gets alot more complicated. Basically it can get about as complicated as you want it to. There are bunches of ways we could expand this, big letter campaigns, petitions, going through the sponsors, etc. And those are all viable ideas to play with. But right now I'd like to keep it simple.
THE SIMPLE TWO-FOLD SYSTEM:
1) Holding the Media Accountable for Their Words. Like I mentioned above. Read. Find Lies. Contact.
2) Putting Out the Flames of Fires they already Started. That means moderating comments on blogs. I don't expect you to have the time to respond to every bad comment or try to argue with people. But if there is a lie being overwhelminly propagated in the comments, respond with evidence to refute it. That commentor probably won't be back, but this way we are giving other readers the truth to seek if they really want it.
In the meantime, I'll be trying to pull together posts of Common Offenses, to make responses easier for you all. For those of you who have started responding already, if you care to share, that'd be fabulous as well. I'm still trying to work out how to do this as well, so I really do welcome any and all suggestions you can give.
The key to our effectiveness is ORGANIZATION.
Now, I know I'm not going to be able to do this all by myself, I'm gonna need some help. Right now, if we could get one person from each media group to VOLUNTEER to head their group? I promise you can recruit others to help you out as well if you feel the task is too daunting. For now I just need people willing to be the major eye and contact figure.
And lastly, but most importantly: GUIDELINES!
GUIDELINES I think we should agree to follow to maximize our efficiency:
1) Stay rational, stay reasonable.
2) Keep it civil. No press BASHING. No matter how much they might deserve it.
3) Refrain from judging or demonizing. People have a right to support any candidate they want, we just shouldn't be able to tell from their report. (i.e. Avoid saying 'oh, he's a CLINTON supporter', like it's a dirty word.)
4) No distorting, no smearing. We are only as good as how we treat our opponents. No matter how they treat us. Strike Hard, Strike Fast, With Truth.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head right now. Anything else I'm missing, feel free to shout. I'm still all sorting this one out myself, so I'm completely open to any suggestions any of you might be able to give.
I wish you all the best of luck in your watchdogging! And remember "Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change". Not EVEN the media.
ARE YOU FIRED UP? ARE YOU READY TO GO?! LET'S GO CHANGE THE WORLD!!
9 comments:
TESTING. TESTING.
testing.
also known as AmyWI on the blog
oh I have an idea!
*raises hand*
The other communities that I've been a part of where many people were posting, often had us post a small template at the beginning of our comment /entry to keep things organized.
So here's my idea.
Kristin could create various threads on this blog. One could be for CNN, one for MSNBC, etc etc for all the outlets we are monitoring.
She could also create a thread called something like, Get the Word Out, Spread this Around, whatever you want to call it....anyways, that thread could be used for articles, videos, whatever we find from other sources that we now want to bring that information to the media outlets we're monitoring.
For example, under the share this around thread, one person can post a comment on the NAFTA articles that are beginning to surface.
So here's the comment template I had in mind. For every time you report or find something include this:
Subject: e.g. NAFTA
Brief Description: Possible Clinton involvement?
Media outlet(s) found on: e.g Drudge Report
Media outlet(s) to contact: e.g. Contact All on media list
And then post a link to the actual article, video, whatever, or if its not too long you could post it here itself.
Anyways, just my 2 cents on how we could stay organized. I have found in other groups those common headers work great, it allows people to not keep posting the same things, to skim through things, etc etc.
oh, I have another idea.
(please tell me if I'm getting annoying! I just have all these random ideas popping up. I think its my public relations training coming out)
Perhaps we could, before each upcoming state election, post a thread that lists the contact info for the local media.
So we could have a Wyoming thread and monitor the local media there. And if anybody lives in those states...they should definitely write letters to the editor, call into radio stations, things like that. I don't suppose those of us in other states would get our letters published in their local papers, but you never know and it certainly wouldn't hurt to monitor them.
Hey Amy! I've been trying to figure out a way to cut the long posts up top like an lj-cut but then I go to reply to your comment and SHEESH, BLOGGER. Can I really not just simply REPLY to a comment? Perhaps it might be best to shift this over to LJ. That just won't work for large groups to organize under...
hey Kristin, yeah I think Blogger definitely isn't designed for a community like this.
I say we either shift it to livejournal and make a community there, or we could make a forum at proboards.
I have been a member of proboards forum for over 2 years now and it's very user friendly, probably even more so than livejournal.
What do you think?
the other nice thing I forgot to mention about proboards is that you don't have to be as tech savvy as you do for LJ, so that could help a LOT of people out who don't feel comfortable with LJ cuts (because those can be confusing at first lol!)
Also, you can set people to be mods...this is great because we could assign mods from different parts of the world so that we can compensate for time zone differences (this is what we do on the forum I've been on for 2 years, and let me tell you it sure has paid off!) that way if you have a troll or spammer, you're likely to have a quick response from a mod regardless of the time zone.
Here is accurate info on Rezko - obama had received donations but they were returned.
Great idea!
One difficulty-- the black background and white text on the home page makes reading hard on some computers. Can it be switched to black text?
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