Planned Parenthood plans to run this pro-choice ad on Superbowl Sunday to counter an anti-abortion ad featuring Tim Tebow. This is a sophisticated spot that gets its point across without being confrontational. I do admire the work done to put it together. Then again, I suspect that tens of millions of people will see these two ads and not a single person will change his/her opinion on the issue of abortion.
At the recent True Spin Conference in Denver, I attended a session titled "How to Create Media-Friendly Imagery," presented by Jason Salzman, who is the co-founder of Effect Communications, and the author of Making The News: a Guide for Activists and Nonprofits (1998). Salzman was also instrumental in putting together the True Spin Conference.
Salzman began his session with the idea that television is still the dominant news source for national and international news, according to a 2008 Pew survey. It is an undeniable fact that you need visual imagery to get your story onto the TV news. Visual imagery is also important for getting your story into local newspapers, another news source for many people.
Maybe you're thinking that newspapers and television stations should simply be reporting on important stories, whether or not there is an accompanying clever visual image. That's a nice idea that doesn't happen in the real world. You absolutely need to decorate your stories with creative visuals, or else your stories will be invisible to local media. As Salzman says, "This is often ridiculous stuff, but it works." He presented the conference gathering with a long list of types of visual imagery. He added, "When you see some of these things, you might think they are juvenile or stupid, but they really work. As long as your imagery is on message, it's good."
Now I know that some of you probably are still thinking that you're not going to sell out-- you would rather be dignified than be accused of being silly or desperate to get coverage for your important issue. Salzman encouraged the audience members to get over their inhibitions, however. "Stunts can be worthwhile. People forget the source, but they remember the message."
What kinds of visual imagery seem to catch the attention of the local news media so that you can get your story some real attention? I will walk through Jason's list of seventeen media-imagery techniques, one-by-one. He has graciously allowed me to reprint some of his slides to illustrate these ideas (using these images makes sense, of course, given the topic).
1. Costumes. Salzman stated that costumes are the "oldest and best" use of imagery available. By dressing up as a giant pea pod, he was successful in gaining considerable media attention while making the point that George W. Bush and John McCain were "two peas in a pod." As you can see, he wore his pea pod costume at his session.
As another of many examples, Salzman described how mobs of cameras once gathered around real pigs that were part of a protest of pork barrel projects. A member of the audience asked whether it would be better to surprise the media by suddenly pulling out the costume, but Salzman strenuously disagreed. "Don't surprise the media. Tell the media you'll be there [dressed up in your costume]." Members of the media love stories with images. "Tell them you'll be there and tell them how you'll be dressed. This will dramatically increase your odds of showing up on the news."
2. Dramatize a Phrase. Salzman pointed to an example of a huge "budget pie," to illustrate a story that one-half of discretionary spending went to the military.
3. Banners. If the timing is right, banners can work beautifully. Let the cameras pan those big banners! He gave the example of the New York garbage barge (at left).
[More . . . ]
Perhaps you've heard about the American hikers being held in an Iranian prison? A couple of Belgian bicyclists who were detained at the same prison have some updates on their situation:
"We're deeply concerned for their well-being," Van den Bosch and Falleur wrote in a news release. "The psychological stresses of detention were very great, especially during interrogation and solitary confinement." As of early December, when Van den Bosch and Falleur were released, the American hikers were being held in solitary confinement, a harrowing experience the Belgian men describe in detail. "We were in cells with no outside contact and a ceiling light on day and night," they wrote. "No communication was possible with other prisoners or with our families. Everything was designed to make us feel very lonely." Van den Bosch and Falleur added, "From our own experience, we can only imagine that the psychological pressure put on the hikers to confess to crimes they are innocent of is extremely intense. Their feeling of loneliness must be extreme."Yes, no doubt the psychological pressures one must face in those sorts of situations must be intense. Not as intense as the pressures innocent Muslims face in America's torture prisons and secret black-ops sites, but extreme in any case!
In America's heartland there is a modern temple to the denial of five nines (99.999%) of what we've learned about the universe in the last couple of centuries. The Creation Museum is a sleek, elegant, well presented indoor theme park almost entirely lacking in actual knowledge. It is derided worldwide, and is a source of shame for our once forward thinking nation. It is also, I grant, an edifice to the principle of free speech. The ham, showman and charlatan who created this institution in Kentucky after he was laughed out of his Australian homeland seems to be quite sincere about the project. Ken Ham is actually his name. And he has been raking in major profits for nearly three years from this place, well beyond even his early hopes. Apparently there is more than one born again every minute. Busloads of young Christians long to go on pilgrimages to shore up their Young Earth ideology. The younger ones (under 12) can even get their picture taken on the back of a dinosaur, just like those that people rode. That is, before the old west cowboys killed the last of them off. That's why all those T-Rexes are found out on the great plains. You don't have to take this from me on faith, follow the links from the Wikipedia article on the Creation Museum. See actual video tours. So, why am I venting my bile right now? Wasn't this already adequately covered on this site? I just learned that a young collateral relative, a bright young man, is looking forward to his trip there this weekend! Half a dozen years ago, he was in public schools, in every advanced program they offered. Advanced science and math and lead cello in the district orchestra. Then his parents removed him from all that intellectual wealth to put him in a small Christian school. He still excelled, eventually garnering college board scores that got him invitations to Harvard and Yale and such. But he wants to go to a small school with an influential chapter of the Campus Crusade. Sigh. Most of this is re-posted from this FaceBook note.
After 37 minutes of deliberation, a Kansas jury has found Scott Roeder guilty of first degree murder in the death of Dr. George Tiller, who Roeder shot at church, claiming that he was preventing future deaths of unborn children. Roeder's defense wanted a lesser charge, voluntary manslaughter, but Judge Warren Wilbert denied the motion, stating that Roeder was not permitted to use the necessity defense. Roeder seems to think he was justified. Years of debate over abortion has led to some people immersing themselves so deeply in the conviction that a fetus is fully human, with all the rights of someone walking around, talking and interacting with others, that it inevitably results in the emergence of those who feel justified in acting as if they were engaged in a geurilla war against an occupying force. They will see themselves as heroes. They will not see how such actions are themselves violations of the very standards they uphold and claim are superior to the law of the land. At many points along the way since Roe v. Wade there have been opportunities for the two sides to come together to find a middle path. The simple expedient of increasing sex education and the availability of contraception would have, over the last thirty-plus years, alleviated a great deal of the necessity for practices many---even supporters of the right of a woman to choose---find troubling. But that was not to be. Those, like Randall Terry of Operation Rescue, see contraception as another form of abortion. A ridiculous stance, but one that has poisoned many chances for accord.