Regime Change Strategy
Tucson, Arizona… I attended a meeting yesterday of twenty-five or more representatives of progressive organizations in southern Arizona, organizations that ran the alphabet from ACLU to Wingspan; conservation groups, unions, advocates for seniors, tax reform, women and children, prison reform, water and border issues and so on.
In other words we represented in some way or other most of the advocacy groups that have felt the blows of neo-con politics at the national and local level.
This very preliminary meeting was to draw up the broadest possible list of issues we believed the public needed to be informed about. Underlying that discussion was the uniform opinion that we were not well served by the press in Arizona, that it was hard to get stories by the editorial gate-keepers, and that they failed to follow up on the stories that they did publish.
This meeting was honchoed by a representative of the American Forum. The American Forum functions like a wire service, providing op-ed and background papers to local newspapers in states where state editorial boards have been established. For details take a close look at the American Forum website. ( Incidentally, I note that there is an American Forum editorial board at work in Ohio.)
Now here is what I like about the American Forum strategy: It aims to get the progressive message out so as to influence legislation at the state level. Its state level orientation makes the op-ed pieces and backgrounders it produces very much more palatable to local papers, even those with conservative owners.
In Arizona there are 18 dailies and 85 weeklies, 168 radio stations and 27 television stations. The smaller dailies and weeklies are often desperate for content and will publish op-ed pieces if they are well researched and written by people their readers are likely to know. This gets the progressive message out in small towns as well as major markets.
When you get a chance to say…Hey, we need this legislation at the state level because they’re not helping us much in Washington…you‘re helping the progressive cause at the state and local level and getting people to think about the possibility of change nationally.
I’m not wed to this idea, but I thought I’d throw it out so the meme project people at Rayne’s could take a look at it. Get a pencil and paper and write down this address…oops! Wrong medium. Click here.
