So just to be clear: Those long, breathless, effusive posts from Knapp about updating lists of newspapers and phone numbers are really about him calling those newspapers and phone numbers to ask to host C4ss content? It’s kind of a bizarre image of a newspaper editor debating an anarchist on the viability of a regular column…
Media outreach is great and you’ve already got a good internet presence, but I don’t believe it is likely to succeed in traditional statist media outlets. Third parties are always crowded out of elections because of the 2-party monopoly, and the same thing would likely happen in traditional media. In the event that Knapp did get Carson or any other C4SS contributor onto a big newspaper/tv program they’d probably be labeled as either jokers (like how Beck invited the CPUSA president on just to mock him), or as partisan stooges (the way Democrats react to Green-Party candidates as hucksters and “spoilers”).
I’d personally like to be a fly on the wall when those newspaper editors hear he wants them to have anarchists on!
I don’t believe it is likely to succeed in traditional statist media outlets.
Well, it depends what you mean by “traditional statist media outlets”; but as Tom has noted, several of our articles have been picked up by non-anarchist papers.
In the event that Knapp did get Carson or any other C4SS contributor onto a big newspaper/tv program they’d probably be labeled as either jokers (like how Beck invited the CPUSA president on just to mock him), or as partisan stooges (the way Democrats react to Green-Party candidates as hucksters and “spoilers”).
Yes, quite possibly; but that’s not necessarily such a bad thing — because it would still get some percentage of the viewership to check out our website.
P.S. – Of course Beck has had anarchists on his show and treated them very well, but neither he nor they advertised their anarchism very loudly.
“So just to be clear: Those long, breathless, effusive posts from Knapp about updating lists of newspapers and phone numbers are really about him calling those newspapers and phone numbers to ask to host C4ss content? ”
Um, no. not sure where you got any such idea.
Those long, breathless effusive posts from Knapp are written between sessions of going though media directories, typing email contact addresses into a contact database, emailing C4SS content submissions w/cover letter to the new contacts, eliminating addresses that bounce, honoring requests to be removed from the list, etc.
It’s never occurred to me to call editorial page editors on the phone. My guess is that they’d find it annoying, and that once they hung up the next thing they’d do is put “c4ss.org” in their email filters to send our stuff directly to the trash.
I suppose I just assumed emailing wouldn’t accomplish anything because newspapers would just trash or mark as spam any solicitation they got by email. After all they already have syndicated columnists like Michelle Malkin, et al to print.
I suppose there may be some papers that automatically trash email op-ed submissions … but that’s not been my experience.
I’ve personally had email-submitted op-eds published in several newspapers ranging from mid-size (Columbia, Missouri Tribune) to large (Washington Times). Back in the late 1990s, I wrote a weekly column, pitched it to newspapers by email, and had (if I recall correctly) four weeklies publish it either regularly or frequently.
Since I started this C4SS gig, we’ve had a few pickups, and I expect more. I’ve also had some non-form replies from editors that indicate they at least looked at the pieces (e.g. “we only publish op-ed pieces that relate immediately to [location]; what you sent us was a national issues piece;” “this is anarchist stuff — are you crazy?;” etc.).
Sorry to be long, breathless and effusive again, but what I’m trying to do here is not JUST build a big-ass email list. I’m breaking it down by nation, region and state to start with; I can target particular cities fairly easily from that, and over time I expect to add category slugs to the contacts so that left-leaning or right-leaning, ethnically targeted, etc. pubs get the stuff most likely to be interesting to them.
The main reason that I’m being long, breathless and effusive in my coordinator updates is that I figure that will be more attractive to supporters of the Center than just saying “I’m doing a lot of boring data entry work right now. There’s your update, now go away.”
So just to be clear: Those long, breathless, effusive posts from Knapp about updating lists of newspapers and phone numbers are really about him calling those newspapers and phone numbers to ask to host C4ss content? It’s kind of a bizarre image of a newspaper editor debating an anarchist on the viability of a regular column…
What’s bizarre about it? And what’s your alternative media outreach strategy?
Media outreach is great and you’ve already got a good internet presence, but I don’t believe it is likely to succeed in traditional statist media outlets. Third parties are always crowded out of elections because of the 2-party monopoly, and the same thing would likely happen in traditional media. In the event that Knapp did get Carson or any other C4SS contributor onto a big newspaper/tv program they’d probably be labeled as either jokers (like how Beck invited the CPUSA president on just to mock him), or as partisan stooges (the way Democrats react to Green-Party candidates as hucksters and “spoilers”).
I’d personally like to be a fly on the wall when those newspaper editors hear he wants them to have anarchists on!
Well, it depends what you mean by “traditional statist media outlets”; but as Tom has noted, several of our articles have been picked up by non-anarchist papers.
Yes, quite possibly; but that’s not necessarily such a bad thing — because it would still get some percentage of the viewership to check out our website.
P.S. – Of course Beck has had anarchists on his show and treated them very well, but neither he nor they advertised their anarchism very loudly.
“So just to be clear: Those long, breathless, effusive posts from Knapp about updating lists of newspapers and phone numbers are really about him calling those newspapers and phone numbers to ask to host C4ss content? ”
Um, no. not sure where you got any such idea.
Those long, breathless effusive posts from Knapp are written between sessions of going though media directories, typing email contact addresses into a contact database, emailing C4SS content submissions w/cover letter to the new contacts, eliminating addresses that bounce, honoring requests to be removed from the list, etc.
It’s never occurred to me to call editorial page editors on the phone. My guess is that they’d find it annoying, and that once they hung up the next thing they’d do is put “c4ss.org” in their email filters to send our stuff directly to the trash.
I suppose I just assumed emailing wouldn’t accomplish anything because newspapers would just trash or mark as spam any solicitation they got by email. After all they already have syndicated columnists like Michelle Malkin, et al to print.
Anon,
I suppose there may be some papers that automatically trash email op-ed submissions … but that’s not been my experience.
I’ve personally had email-submitted op-eds published in several newspapers ranging from mid-size (Columbia, Missouri Tribune) to large (Washington Times). Back in the late 1990s, I wrote a weekly column, pitched it to newspapers by email, and had (if I recall correctly) four weeklies publish it either regularly or frequently.
Since I started this C4SS gig, we’ve had a few pickups, and I expect more. I’ve also had some non-form replies from editors that indicate they at least looked at the pieces (e.g. “we only publish op-ed pieces that relate immediately to [location]; what you sent us was a national issues piece;” “this is anarchist stuff — are you crazy?;” etc.).
Sorry to be long, breathless and effusive again, but what I’m trying to do here is not JUST build a big-ass email list. I’m breaking it down by nation, region and state to start with; I can target particular cities fairly easily from that, and over time I expect to add category slugs to the contacts so that left-leaning or right-leaning, ethnically targeted, etc. pubs get the stuff most likely to be interesting to them.
The main reason that I’m being long, breathless and effusive in my coordinator updates is that I figure that will be more attractive to supporters of the Center than just saying “I’m doing a lot of boring data entry work right now. There’s your update, now go away.”
Regards,
Tom