Forwarded message from: neal rauhauser, [email protected]
Progressive Congress News (http://bit.ly/CPC-Immigration) collects
policy stories and then delivers them to over 700 Congressional
staffers. We have over a dozen active Twitter feeds, this content is
seen by over 200,000 mobile users of Visible Vote in addition to the
staffers, and our morning email is viewed as key intelligence for busy
policy makers. We work directly with communication directors and
chiefs of staff from the House Progressive caucus in order to tune our
process, producing content that results in email open rates above 50%,
an unheard of number for a news service.
We struggle to find enough policy related content in the mainstream
news for some areas. We are always interested to hear from groups that
have well done studies, stories that related statistics to local or
regional concerns, or personal interest stories that expose how a
specific policy would impact real people.
If you wish to inform and educate Congressional staff, if you can
produce three to six stories of 250 to 1,000 words, and if you can get
them all out in a week's time then we'd love to hear from you. We
provide a simple, two page guide that tells you what kind of content
works, and we'll help you time your release to maximize your exposure.
Feel free to talk to @P2Hub, @Spedwybabs, or @SandiBehrns if you want
to know more about this.
-------
Educating Via Progressive Congress News
OK, so you’re a grassroots organization, or maybe a coalition of such
groups, and you’re all excited because one of the Progressive Congress
News editors picked up a story of yours and put it where hundreds of
Congressional staffers will see it.
But maybe it wasn’t the right story, maybe it was someone’s careful
spin. Or maybe it was just the tip of the iceberg and the news sources
we use will never get the full details out. There is a simple way for
you to ensure that Congress gets the full story.
Here is the advice we give any strategist from a grassroots
coalition regarding getting your issue visible and educating both
staffers and the public:
• Have current legislation or a well founded study as the basis for
your narrative
• Get three or four people to write at least one article each
• Articles should be factual reporting – OpEd is less than 5% of what
we carry, and those are almost always authored by serious academics
and heavy on statistics
• Look at PCN before you start – which area does your story fit?
• Diversity is good – make sure you have articles for at least two
different PCN coverage areas.
Here are some types of articles that work:
• Revisit an old study by linking to it, update for today’s situation.
• Refer to study or legislation, then make it real by connecting it to
local/state issues
• Personal story as basis, then show how proposed policy would make
the situation better/worse for the subject.
Here are some things that are absolutely unacceptable:
• Lone media person creating three sock puppets to push issue – must
be sourced by recognized groups with some history. Lone grassroots
experts are fine, but not as a sole source.
• Willful lack of journalistic integrity is a non-starter for us.
Insisting on multiple sources is one way we thwart this, checking a
bit ourselves on contentious issues is another.
• Attempting to pay/gift editors. We welcome contributors of money,
retired computers, and in kind donations, but these are always done
transparently via our fiscal sponsor.
Congress is bombarded on a daily basis by lobbying efforts
calculated to muddy the waters. They value us because we help shut out
the noise. If you’ve got facts, if you’re rigorous about presenting
them, then we want to hear what you have to say.
We value transparency. If you’ve taken this advice on how to
produce content that fits our format you should let us know in the
following ways.
• Make contact in advance, let us know how many stories you have
• Don’t drop all your stories on one day, plan on four or five over a week
• Tweet a link to the relevant @PCN account for each story
• Tweet the same link to some of the PCN editors
• Point out to our editors the experts in the field who have Twitter,
blogs, etc
• Encourage those experts and your supporters to notice PCN
Feel free to talk to @P2Hub, @Spedwybabs, or @SandiBehrns if you
want to know more about this.
------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
