RESULTS.org > Blog > Be Inspired and Generate Media In Your Community!
Be Inspired and Generate Media In Your Community!
Ken Patterson
August 06, 2010
Teresa Rugg sent a note to the listserve highlighting what turned out to be a great media hook for her to get a letter published in the Everett Herald.
If any one speech will motivate you to write a letter to the editor regarding funding for HIV/AIDS this interview I heard today with the articulate and RESULTS supporter Steven Lewis on Democracy NOW certainly will! You will hang on his every word and get you fired up to ensure that the Obama Administration takes the critical steps to fully fund the Global Fund for Aids, TB, and Malaria. Fantastic hooks in here for you to use.
Bruce Preville took Teresa’s hook and turned it into a letter to the editor in the San Jose Mercury News, and an idea for spurring more collaboration between grassroots activists to generate media. The Media Derby described below is the results. We can support each other to be powerful. Great idea Bruce.
Media Derby
We generated 101 House sign-ons on Rep Lee’s House letter to the president. We generated 33 senators on the Senate letter. We have built momentum. To continue to put wind in the sails of Obama and Congress, the regional coordinators have taken on bold goals for media on the Global Fund: 15 editorials, 10 op-eds, and 50 LTEs by September 19. To make achieving these goals fun and inspiring, we are launching a contest called the Media Derby. The idea is that too often partners don’t get started writing because they lack a useful hook, a way to tie the topic into something already in the news. We are launching this contest to add interest and promote collaboration among the RESULTS partners as a way of getting more media published. Here’s how this exciting contest works.
- Partners will identify great media hooks they identify their local paper that might also have relevance around the country. A “hook” is an angle or clever way to introduce the subject so that it resonates with readers.
- They send in their hook ideas to the RESULTS listserve (results-L@googlegroups.com) for other partners to use.
- If the partner uses the hook to get something published, he/she sends their published media to the RESULTS listserve and identifies whose hook they used. The person who introduced the hook is then awarded points based on the scoring below. Eligible media should be published in the print version of a U.S. newspaper by September 19.
- Points are awarded for eligible media as follows: Editorials: 10 points, op-eds: 4 points, LTEs: 1 point. For media appearing in the print edition of the U.S. newspapers listed below with the largest circulation, points awarded will be doubled.
- USA Today (2,528,437)
- Wall Street Journal (2,058,342)
- New York Times (1,683,855)
- Los Angeles Times (1,231,318)
- Washington Post (960,684)
- Chicago Tribune (957,212)
- New York Daily News (795,153)
- Philadelphia Inquirer (705,965)
- Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News (704,806)
- Houston Chronicle (692,557)
The contest winner is the person who sends out the hook ideas awarded the most points.
- Prizes: First Prize: Tons of prestige and recognition of your work and a RESULTS Action Kit consisting of 2 RESULTS shirts, chocolate to keep you energized, and other goodies. Second Prize: Prestige and recognition and RESULTS Action Kit with 1 RESULTS shirt and other goodies.
Our Tools
- Editorial Packet on the issue (pdf)
- August Action Sheet on writing letters to the editor (Word doc)
- Editorial Board/Media Tour. We are looking at bringing several powerful AIDS/TB activists to the U.S. to help you with editorial board meetings in your cities. Your job would be to set up the meetings. We would then bring the activists to your city to meet with editors. We hope to focus on generating media, so will not expect groups to organize other events—just media opportunities. We are pulling together a list of cities that would great media targets, but if you are interested, let me, Lisa, or Blair know.
- Training Calls. We are offering 2 training calls where we can share ideas and successes, and get inspired: Tuesday, August 17, and Wednesday, August 18, at 9 pm ET each night. Call in: (712) 432-3100, passcode: 761262.
- Each other. We can be a resource to each other, sharing hooks, ideas, and helping each other refine our pitches, letters and op-eds. See the description of the Media Derby above.
- Hooks we’ve created:
- Anne Child said that we can ask 101 editors to write an editorial on the Global Fund and request a quote from the representative who signed on to the Barbara Lee letter.
- Peter Fiekowsky said that getting the president to take leadership on funding the Global Fund is helping him earn the Nobel Peace Prize that he won (Obama said that he didn’t feel he had earned it, but hoped to in the future).
- The Lee letter can also be a hook for our own op-eds or letters to the editor.
- International AIDS Conference. Go to your paper’s website and do a search for AIDS or HIV and see if there are any recent articles on the International AIDS Conference or other AIDS related issues that you can respond to.
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