Attention organizers everywhere–one of your most important tasks right now is to steer the media towards your actions. Here’s some advice from one of our California organizers, describing their press operation. It is not too late to do some serious reaching out to the press.
Those of us working on 350 events for this Saturday’s International Day of Climate Action know that WE make the news and it’s our job to get it where it needs to go. So we’ve been blogging for months, we’ve been Twittering, we’ve been Facebooking and we’ve been emailing.
https://www.350.org/SouthBay350
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144407568429
https://twitter.com/southbay350
And when I say WE, here in South Bay Los Angeles I mean the 40 different groups we made news with first, back in July when we started teaching them about 350 and gave them the news that got them on board.
We started with our elected officials – our Congresswoman, our State Senator, our Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the 16 cities of the South Bay Cities Councils of Governments, the Mayors of all our beach cities. We knew they could get us media directly through their press people and that having them supporting and endorsing us would bring us media attention too.
We then targeted the 50 local schools, and reached not just all the students but all their parents and grandparents through them. Then all our local churches who communicate with their flocks every single week. We reached out to the businesses and they got the word out through their networks. And we reached out to the bigger, broader Los Angeles communities.
https://sb350.pbworks.com/
We also have a full-throated volunteer media team doing what you have to do, writing and sending out press advisories, press releases, and science background. Making phone call after phone call to follow up. And remembering to feed the beast real positive news every time we called about new additions to our alliance, new features of our event, new videos and photos of people involved. And we’ve been spoon feeding them the climate research and 350 science every step of the way to make sure they get it right.
Here’s another example of how we make the news and then get it out there ourselves. Last night I represented our SB 350 Climate Action Group at Torrance City Hall where the City Council passed a resolution supporting and endorsing our Oct 24 event and urging all Torrance citizens to be there. We got back home at 9pm, transferred the TIVo’d clip of the televised council meeting to the computer. Edited it, uploaded it to YouTube and posted a blog piece about it. That’s what our people woke up to this morning and that’s what they’re passing on to their lists and contacts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHiGoEyGvH4
Yesterday morning they woke up to this long piece by Daily Breeze columnist John Bogert in which reported a ton of 350 and science that we had worked for a month feeding him.
https://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_13595812
We’ve got our event banners stretched across downtown shopping areas and on PCH where 60,000 cars go by daily. We got our posters up in hundreds of stores. Our fliers are everywhere. Every Farmers Market knows our name and our army of volunteers for weeks now. That’s all part of te local news.
We know that you can create and build your own media momentum using all the easy tools we have at our disposal and with literally no budget.
So instead of just doing a Human Tide Line to demonstrate sea level rise impacts here at our beach, we’re inviting people to be part of “The Amazing Waving Human Tide Line.” It sounds like fun, it’s unique and easy to remember and the media has loved it as a hook. Go ahead and Google that phrase and you’ll see that we have created our own unique brand with that phrase. That was no accident. We thought the TV and video people would love it too because now it’s something alive and moving – something that NEEDS video to be seen best. Can’t do that with just a still shot.
My friends in the 350 movement, we ARE the media and we will be the ones delivering the 350 news all around the world on Saturday to millions and millions of people in every part of our planet. If we keep our heads down, keep pouring it on and finish the job, the legacy MSM won’t be able to ignore us. Nothing can stop us if we stay Fired Up, Ready to Go!
See you all on TV. And on the Jumbotron in Times Square.