Well Suchita beat me to the exciting conclusion of the Convention in the post immediately following this one. But I'd like to post some of the things I learned at the workshop on media outreach, because I think the DNC press person threw out a lot of good ideas that could improve our College Democrats chapter. I realize we would probably need volunteers to help with lot of the stuff on here (I'm definitely willing to take on some of it) and a lot of it may not be immediately feasible, but these are truly excellent ideas that may have the potential to help us turn our people power (from having one of the largest College Dems chapters) into greater political influence.
First thing, we should develop a media list. Who are the big important names in the Wisconsin media? Outlets like Wisconsin Public Radio, The Wisconsin State Journal, and The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel immediately come to mind. It's important to build relationships with journalists so that when we have a story we want to get attention, they already know who we are. This means compiling a list and regularly emailing them, not chain mail and solicitations, but really significant story ideas that we think they should be aware of. We already have relationships with the student newspapers (The Badger Herald and Daily Cardinal) but we need to maintain those. I remember many College Democrats acting as official spokespeople writing many an op-ed and letters to the editor in the run-up to the midterms last year and we should keep that up.
In addition to the mainstream media, it may be a good idea to reach out to the larger blogosphere. That means posting on community blogs such as Daily Kos and MyDD that are well-read and allow diaries. We should also compile the contact information of bloggers for many large progressive blogs for when we stumble upon stories of potentially national significance. But instead of merely happening upon stories, we should regularly compile news clippings. This doesn't mean literally clipping out newspaper articles but compiling links from regular Lexis-Nexis searches and posting them on our website so we have a sort of database of news stories significant to us. From this, it will be possible to send out regular "talking points" emails to keep College Democrats informed who may not have time to keep up with the news.
I know 2007 is an off-year, but something we should start to do (and will probably grow in importance as 2008 approaches) is to develop something called a strategic events calender. This means we anticipate news events like the anniversary of 9/11, veterans day, the state of the state address, important elections, and be ready in advance to issue press releases. This will help develop an official UW-Madison College Democrats message and gain media attention. In terms of elections, as part of news clipping projects we should be looking for negative pieces on opponents and incorporating them into press releases to media outlets. This will help establish a narrative, allowing us to define our opponents. This narrative needs to be reinforced and repeated over and over again. This is how John Kerry was branded a flip-flopper in 2004, through relentless Republican reinforcement which turned into a media narrative.
Most of everything I've mentioned could be achieved for free or at a very limited cost if we could find people willing to do some of the grunt work. We should clearly concentrate the most on gaining free media since there isn't a whole lot of money to work with. However, there are some forms of media outreach that cost money but for which the cost may not be prohibitive. Many College Dems chapters now produce regular podcasts that can be freely distributed via iTunes. All we would need is an iPod and some cheap recording and mp3 converting equipment. Fore more information, download the Powerpoint presentation on podcast production here. These podcasts would be helpful for regular updates to members as well as for sharing interviews we could do with important people (that we can get access to) and guests at College Democrats meetings. That brings me to the last 2 things we could spend money on. Attracting speakers to events and advertising in paper, on the radio, and on TV. Obviously those aren't very likely options unless we have a specific goal in mind and can obtain some kind of revenue stream.
So that's it, just throwing ideas out there. Leave a comment if you have your own ideas on how to improve our media outreach or if you want to help make any of the projects I mentioned a reality.
First thing, we should develop a media list. Who are the big important names in the Wisconsin media? Outlets like Wisconsin Public Radio, The Wisconsin State Journal, and The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel immediately come to mind. It's important to build relationships with journalists so that when we have a story we want to get attention, they already know who we are. This means compiling a list and regularly emailing them, not chain mail and solicitations, but really significant story ideas that we think they should be aware of. We already have relationships with the student newspapers (The Badger Herald and Daily Cardinal) but we need to maintain those. I remember many College Democrats acting as official spokespeople writing many an op-ed and letters to the editor in the run-up to the midterms last year and we should keep that up.
In addition to the mainstream media, it may be a good idea to reach out to the larger blogosphere. That means posting on community blogs such as Daily Kos and MyDD that are well-read and allow diaries. We should also compile the contact information of bloggers for many large progressive blogs for when we stumble upon stories of potentially national significance. But instead of merely happening upon stories, we should regularly compile news clippings. This doesn't mean literally clipping out newspaper articles but compiling links from regular Lexis-Nexis searches and posting them on our website so we have a sort of database of news stories significant to us. From this, it will be possible to send out regular "talking points" emails to keep College Democrats informed who may not have time to keep up with the news.
I know 2007 is an off-year, but something we should start to do (and will probably grow in importance as 2008 approaches) is to develop something called a strategic events calender. This means we anticipate news events like the anniversary of 9/11, veterans day, the state of the state address, important elections, and be ready in advance to issue press releases. This will help develop an official UW-Madison College Democrats message and gain media attention. In terms of elections, as part of news clipping projects we should be looking for negative pieces on opponents and incorporating them into press releases to media outlets. This will help establish a narrative, allowing us to define our opponents. This narrative needs to be reinforced and repeated over and over again. This is how John Kerry was branded a flip-flopper in 2004, through relentless Republican reinforcement which turned into a media narrative.
Most of everything I've mentioned could be achieved for free or at a very limited cost if we could find people willing to do some of the grunt work. We should clearly concentrate the most on gaining free media since there isn't a whole lot of money to work with. However, there are some forms of media outreach that cost money but for which the cost may not be prohibitive. Many College Dems chapters now produce regular podcasts that can be freely distributed via iTunes. All we would need is an iPod and some cheap recording and mp3 converting equipment. Fore more information, download the Powerpoint presentation on podcast production here. These podcasts would be helpful for regular updates to members as well as for sharing interviews we could do with important people (that we can get access to) and guests at College Democrats meetings. That brings me to the last 2 things we could spend money on. Attracting speakers to events and advertising in paper, on the radio, and on TV. Obviously those aren't very likely options unless we have a specific goal in mind and can obtain some kind of revenue stream.
So that's it, just throwing ideas out there. Leave a comment if you have your own ideas on how to improve our media outreach or if you want to help make any of the projects I mentioned a reality.
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