Are you willing to take part in a letter writing campaign to the media?

A few of us are interested in starting a massive letter writing campaign to reply to the wild lies that the media is allowing their newscasters and pundits to spout.

Skinner has referred us to a huge media contact list in the Research Forum and he okays the letter writing campaign idea.

What would help immensely would be for a few folks who are good at writing such letters to compose same that express our displeasure at being called anti-semitic and all the other lies that are being bandied about.

We will post these letters so that DUers can copy, cut and paste them onto email forms and send them to the offending stations.

If you are willing to help, please let us know.

I understand that the Republicans have over 6000 letter writers that can be counted on to contact the media and complain about any story they disagree with. We MUST begin to do the same, especially since it appears that none of our Democratic legislators are going to step up to the plate and refute these lies and defend us...their constituents.

We must either help ourselves or else just stop complaining to each other.

to a DUer on GD re the same letter writing campaign. This shows where we can use some help:

I am hoping that we can address some of the lies that the news media is bandying about with such enthusiasm. If we don't respond now, they will ride their lying horse to death. This crap will grow and grow unless we put a stop to it and the only way we can bring this to a dead halt is by sheer numbers.

The anti-semitism charge is a dangerous and blatant lie. I doubt that less that one-tenth of one percent of the CT voters considered Mr. Lieberman's race/nationality/religion when they chose to vote for Lamont. Otherwise he would never have been elected in the first place. So we need to point out our reasons for supporting his opponent...as many examples as possible. We have to point our ALL the reasons that we stopped supporting him. It is grossly unfair for the media to allow pundits to say that anti-semitism is rampant in the Democratic Party.

Another topic that needs to be addressed is this name-calling..."one writer in the NY Daily News who is also a frequent guest on one of the Sunday talk shows, Michael Goodwin, constantly refers to the left wing of the Dems as "whacko wingnuts." Think of some of the other names we are called and perhaps define what you believe to be moderate Dems and Leftist Dems. I think we have to force them to accept OUR definitions of what we are and not their made up terms for us.

The letters should be as short and to the point as you can make them.

I went to www.mediamatters.org and got some great tips. You might want to check them out.

When you finish the letter(s) we will post them here with selected email addys and ask DUers to cut, paste sign and email them.

Contact me at bookkeeper99@comcast.net

media list I have ever seen. It is in the Research Forum.

Did you have any specific topic that you feel like writing about or will you write a letter to refute the lies that anti-semitism is rampant in the Democratic Party?

Other topics to write about: Stop booking Ann Coulter, Stop allowing Republicans to define us.

Thanks so much Stargazer99

I started with FAIR back in 94 and by now, with the near complete corporate takeover of broadcast and print media, I can only predict things will get worse, not better.

But....we still have to try.

I am sort of feeling my way as I go, but we have got to hit back with real numbers, so I thought that maybe if we posted some letters that DUers could copy and email, we might get more folks to help out.
i think a lot of people are willing to participate, because just look at the numbers of folks who take part in polls at DU, but I think the idea of composing a letter can sometimes seem like just too much work and it is easy to put it off for some later date. But if you will share some of your letters and allow others to copy them and email them off under their own signature, we might begin to get the numbers that we need.

There is an organized group that gets the facts out after media lies and spins for BushInc.- MediaMatters.

Their alerts pop up here at DU fairly often. But, it's a constant vigil with the media and it's always good to get another soldier in the trenches.

They're not going to pay attention until we make them suffer.

the most urgent of cases. The painting of the entire Democratic Party as being anti-semitic is one of those urgent cases. We can post telephone numbers and ask DUers to call with complaints about particular shows or hosts.

Above all, I would like to get Ann Coulter's hate rhetoric banned from the airwaves.

We have to BECOME the tsunami we need. Just as the Ned Lamont movement can no longer be avoided OR denied, we should be such a movement. ESPECIALLY if the enemy has a force of thousands ready to write and send letters.

It is VERY important.

When I was in radio, and I said this in my column, we knew how important it was when some listener actually took the time to weigh in, either by writing in specifically, or calling the request line, or filling out an ARB diary. Every one of those was noted and appreciated, and acted upon in some way. That's because one - a single bit of input like that - was considered representative of maybe ten more, or 100 more, or more than that, depending on market size, of those who felt the same way but did not weigh in for themselves, either because they were too busy or distracted, or they were driving at the time and didn't have pencil and paper, or they forgot, or they didn't really care that much, or they were discouraged from the start, figuring it wouldn't make any difference or do any good. I've posted before, here, that my own actual job was saved for about a YEAR, from the chopping block, when there were other heads rolling all around me, simply because I was singled out favorably, by name, in ONE mention in the ARB Talkback (a service of the broadcast ratings company Arbitron that allowed listeners to make detailed comments about stations or playlists or jocks or whatever they felt like mentioning). NOBODY messed with me for months and months. Nobody dared. I swear this happened. I can still remember being given a xerox of that particular page in the research that mentioned me. The programming department staffer who made the copy for me handed it to me, almost with reverence. I was golden for almost a year, for that incident alone. Paul Begala has said that 100 paper letters can change the course of a news program. Because somebody cared enough to write in. Paper letters are best. They get handed around, copied, posted on the bulliten board in the coffee room or employee lounge or on the memo board or some such, and invariably seen by multiple pairs of eyes. And it's valuable to have the piece of paper that you hold in your hand and look at - it's VERY real. So keep those cards and letters coming. It IS taken seriously. And when there's a load of them, it's powerfully unavoidable.

It has an impact. I've seen it over and over, with my own eyes. It really does make a difference.

And it SERIOUSLY does now, when the momentum out there is perceived to be on OUR side for a change. The anti-war, anti-bush movement got a HUGE shot of B-vitamins from the Lamont victory. It proved we are a force that has to be reckoned with. We can no longer be ignored or taken lightly. No one dares turn their noses up at us or dismiss us as "looney-left" fringies anymore. The numbers are the numbers. Run the numbers and there's your proof. The numbers were with US last night. More than with the bush-loving capitulator Lieberman. Those, like Lieberman, who don't take this seriously, do so at their peril. Especially since we've now gotten the taste of victory on our tongues. We won't go quietly, and there will only be more of us. The gang mentality is with US now, because people love a winner, and siding with a winner, so Lamont is likely to attract even more support.

It's also, remember, the reason why a small, shrill minority of nutcases on the extreme wrong-wing get the attention and all the pandering of the politicians (well, up til now, that is). Because they're so vocal. They make themselves heard like nobody's business. And in doing so, they encourage the PERCEPTION that they are a much larger, mightier group than they really are. It's because they are reliably ALWAYS there, this small but ferocious group of dittoheads and freepers and religious nutcases. Because they MAKE themselves heard. They FORCE you to deal with them because they don't sit back quietly and just hope that their reps just instinctively "know to do the right thing." And they therefore make themselves into this huge and powerful force that HAS to be dealt with, HAS to be acknowledged and bowed to, and catered to, and cannot be ignored.

So we have to turn up the volume and be there, TOO. Because in truth, there ARE many, many more of us than there are of the REAL "looney" fringies.

I can't overstress how important this is.

If they think you don't care, THEY WON'T, EITHER!!!

proof of how important a letter writing campaign can be.

I am saving this post for encouragement, but I am asking you to start a thread with this post because the more ways we can let people know what we are trying to do the better. You know how often folks will skip one post and read another. And I really think that many,many more will want to help after reading your post.

Please start a thread with this....

Taking certain facts and a C & P into the body of the letter is fine. Form letters tend to get deleted and ignored.

I'm down with it.

about the form letter, but right now, we are trying to come up with a way to get a large number of people involved in emailing these news media with complaints and many folks will not take the time to compose a letter from scratch. If they have a sample, then as you say they can take some of those facts and create something original. We are trying to get about 11 different sample letters so they wont all be the same.

Thanks so much for being willing to help. And please keep giving suggestions and ideas.

I think they have suggestions and templates. I don;t have anything offhand right now but there is one I did on Scaborough that's floating around in my machine.

from them, so I went looking for samples. They have excellent suggestions for such a campaign but no actual templates...alas...

If you find that Scarborough letter, please share it with us...

On your point of the media accusing Democrats of being "anti Semitic" I'm not sure if I can really engage in that condemnation. I haven't read much of who's accusing who of what nor the context. I can say that a lot of anti semites are trying to squeeze their way into the debate by masquerading as liberals and Democrats.

THe reality is that they are Buchannanite/Nixonite douchebags trying to sqeak their way into the debate. I also suppose much of it is due the the "9/11 conspiracy theorists" who have a concoction that the Jews orchestrated the attacks. Their premise is that silvestein leased BLDG 7 to stage the attacks, demolished to the building to destroy the evidence and collected the insurance money. Also the claim being that Silverstein was Mossad.

A lot of this is "loose change" material that is steeped in the scapegoating of Jews. From what I've seen, the left has buckled from telling these people to fuck off!!!

That needs to start now.

points and allow everyone to compose their own letter. I'm sure media outlets don't read multiple copies of the same letter or copies from the same address. We get nowhere if the words are automatically deleted by a software program.