Why Democrats Need a Media Advocacy Campaign in 2020

When the late Dr. C. Everett Koop issued his first Surgeon General's report about the dangers of smoking in 1982 the media reported it widely. As a result, Dr. Koop realized that publicity and persuasion were effective tools in promoting healthier behavior. In 1984 he launched the Campaign for a Smoke-Free America by 2000 on the 20th anniversary of an earlier Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health, issued in 1964. That earlier report resulted in Congress requiring health warning labels on cigarette packages, and the 1970 ban on TV cigarette advertising. The multi-faceted anti-smoking campaign led to the percentage of Americans who smoked dropping by 33 percent over the course of Dr. Koop’s tenure.

When Koop positioned smoking as a public health issue, he was doing what media advocacy professionals call “framing.”  When he talked about how many people would die of smoking- related cancer, he didn’t just use big numbers. He added, “that’s the equivalent of [X number] of jumbo jets full of passengers crashing in a year.” That’s called “creative epidemiology.” And when he told a story about someone dying from smoking, he related it to a real person in the community where he was speaking, “juxtaposing” his message on a situation that audiences could relate to.

Koop didn’t change the culture of smoking by himself.  Many communication professionals contributed to the success of the anti-smoking campaign that led to behavior change and altered social norms nationally.  Working together, they mounted one of the most successful media advocacy efforts ever undertaken.  It’s now a case study of a methodology that changed health behavior, safety belt use, forest fire prevention, and more.

Media advocacy is the strategic use of mass media to advance public policy and address political issues that have important and harmful social consequences.  It’s rooted in community action and shifts attention from an individual’s attitudes and behavior to greater awareness and collective change, often relating to the political environment. Grounded in communication theory, it has proven to be an effective means of effecting change for everyone’s benefit.

Another method in behavior change communication is social marketing. It derives from a key question asked in the 1960s: “Why can’t you sell brotherhood like you sell soap?” That query led to a new communication objective: the “selling” of socially beneficial ideas and practices that could change behavior to improve all aspects of life, from protecting the environment, to making healthier lifestyle choices, to effecting policy. 

The first objective in social marketing and media advocacy is raising awareness about a problem. Persuading people that something must change follows, leading to individuals and communities taking action, whether its stopping smoking, joining a Green Movement, or voting out a bad president.

As we approach the election in the aftermath of Senate impeachment deliberations, and face continuing support for Donald Trump, voter suppression attempts, and likely cyber interference, Democrats urgently need a strategic, unified media campaign designed to counter Fox News and other sources of misinformation, as well as denial about what’s at stake in November.  

Unified media advocacy messages for TV talk show pundits, social media posts, blogs, opinion editorials, news stories and political ads all need to employ the same pithy soundbites, display the same effective visuals and use recognizable symbols and tag lines. They must offer solid facts, creative epidemiology, localized messaging, credible sources and charismatic, trusted spokespeople who put a human face on Trumpian tragedies.

A media advocacy campaign must focus solely on the threats the Trump administration presents. Candidates, whose policies don’t differ much, should stop repeating narrow, superficial one-liners on health policy, free education, and the economy. The spotlight must always be on the lies, illegalities and dangers of Donald Trump’s corrupt administration, told in human terms.

“More than 18,000 people are held at any one time by ICE. Over 12,000 of them are traumatized children, many separated from their parents, who will never recover emotionally. That’s equivalent to sixty jumbo jets full of asylum seekers. Here is just one of their stories.   ….”

“The fires that ravaged Australia and destroyed a part of that continent larger than Rhode Island signal irreversible environmental disaster if we don’t act immediately to address global warming.  Here’s what science tells us:…….”  And still the president denies climate change.

“Joe Smith died at age 34 because he couldn’t afford his insulin. The Trump administration should be ashamed, and held accountable.”

There are myriad issues like these from polluted waters, to food safety to plundered national parks, begging for heightened awareness and voter turnout. Raising that awareness and promoting action falls to Democratic messengers. If Democrats fail to provide strategic messages that hit home, voters won’t know what’s happening under the radar because of the Trump administration, and how it affects them.

Focused media campaigns expose neglected issues. They discredit opponents and humanize compelling facts.  They reveal lies. In today’s media environment where brevity is essential, a knockout sound bite -- pithy, memorable, and repeatable—can have a huge impact. So can one whopper of a photo.

Designing a media advocacy campaign calls for seasoned professionals.  Still, “Once you ‘get’ media advocacy, you have to do it or you have to live with the fact that you’re not doing everything you can to make a difference,” as one media advocate put it.  Those words couldn’t be more applicable as we face the great urgency of protecting democracy and ensuring a future grounded in the wisdom of our Constitution. Surely Democrats can identify their Dr. Koop in time. The question is, will they?

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Elayne Clift has a master’s degree in Communication and has worked internationally on numerous media campaigns.

Redefining News: What We Don't Read Under the Radar

Have you had enough of Donald Trump’s narcissistic rallies featured regularly on mainstream media?  Tired of the debate about guns in schools? Seen enough of Sunday morning talking heads rehashing the week’s old headlines?  Maybe it’s time for editors and producers to remember what constitutes news and to realize that there’s a world out there about which we know far too little.

There are plenty of scandals, ethical breaches, sensational stories and other travesties swirling around Donald Trump and his minions for his cabinet heads and staff to keep us mired in swamp news for the rest of his hopefully limited term. But there is so much happening beyond that about which we ought to be concerned. I’m not talking politics. I’m talking humanity, and the human faces of tragedies we ought to know about. Here are some examples.

In America, the cruelty of ICE makes social media occasionally, but what does it look like when children are ripped from their parents as they leave school or the supermarket? What happens when your mom is thrown in a Border Police van and you have no idea where she’s going or when you will see her again?

That happened recently in San Diego when an Africa woman who came to the U.S. seeking asylum was suddenly separated from her daughter who was shipped to a facility in Chicago. The woman listened to her daughter’s screams as agents dragged her away without explanation or any idea when she would see her child again.  The ACLU has filed suit in that case, but many are not so lucky. The Florence Project in Arizona documented 155 such cases last year as the Trump administration strongarms families into accepting deportation in order to get their kids back.

And what about offshore?  In East Ghouta, Syria medical facilities supported by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) report receiving nearly 5,000 wounded and more than 1,000 dead over a two-week period in February, and that doesn’t cover all medical facilities. Fifteen of 20 MSF facilities were bombed during recent escalations with no end in sight and no relief supplies getting through. What must it be like for mothers and fathers to watch their children die under those circumstances? What courage does it take to hide in cellars day after day, night after night, without food or water? What must it be like to feel the world has forgotten you?

In Yemen, where increasing violence and unrelenting airstrikes have left millions of families in desperate need of help, what is to be done in the poorest country in the Arab world? What is to be done for the women and children who have no health services, poor water and sanitation, and a child malnutrition rate among the highest in the world? What is to be done when nearly 19 million people have no idea where their next meal will come from and where 5,000 new cases of cholera are reported daily? What is to be done when the U.S. and Saudi Arabia tighten blockades in a proxy war that has no end in sight?

And what is to be done about the genocide of the Rohingya people of Burma when even that country’s once revered symbol of peace, Aung San Suu Kyi, has denied not just their suffering but their existence?  The Rohingya people have lived in Burma for centuries, but they are considered outsiders whose rights were removed in 1982. Last year the military intensified their campaign against them, burning villages, massacring adults and babies with extraordinary cruelty, and forcing almost a million people to flee to Bangladesh in what has been called “a textbook case of ethnic cleansing.”

In Nigeria, precious little was done in 2014 when nearly 300 girls were kidnapped from their school by Boko Haram. There was almost no media follow up. When 110 girls were taken from their school in February this year, hardly a word was written or spoken about it. Now the president of Nigeria, who claimed that Boko Haram was defeated while they continued deadly suicide attacks, has said he will “negotiate” for the girls release instead of using military force because troops are needed elsewhere.

And then there is Israel, where one of the more shocking pieces of news to barely emerge in recent weeks is that African refugee women are being temporarily sterilized with injections of DepoProvera without their consent. There are also numerous cases of violence against Palestinian children, including acts of violence that are not physical.

Take, for example, the case of Ahed Tamimi, a teenager who protested the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem. She was jailed after being arrested in the middle of the night at home.  Israeli officials and politicians want to make an example of Ahed, calling for “severe punishment to serve as a deterrent.” Her family is prohibited from visiting her in Israeli detention, where she was unlawfully transferred from her home in occupied territory, and she remains alone and scared. At this writing, her trial is set for mid-March but many worry it will not take place.

These stories reflect the world in which we live. It extends far beyond Washington, DC or America.  It’s a world that we should all know and care more about. It is the responsibility of media to be sure we do. So are, they are failing miserably.

Troubling Times in the Bush, and in Media's Back Rooms

Everyone now recognizes Cecil, the majestic lion who roamed the Zimbabwean savannah until he was lured into danger by an American hunter who paid megabucks to kill him. Cecil’s death set the Internet on fire and garnered huge amounts of mainstream media attention.  The Doris Day Animal League demanded “Justice for Cecil” and the Empire State building put his regal face on its urban façade as if he were part of a guerrilla marketing campaign. A bill introduced in Congress named after Cecil aimed to extend U.S. import/export restrictions on animal trophies that are threatened or endangered.

All the attention about poached, murdered African animals is good and necessary; what’s happening to these magnificent creatures is horrifying and reprehensible. Anyone lucky enough to have visited Africa and seen its animals knows how small our own place on the planet can seem.

Still, as attention paid to Cecil grew, I wondered why it was that everyone knew a lion’s name and face while virtually no one knew the name or face of a Palestinian baby burnt alive by an Israeli zealot or of a young woman stabbed to death because she attended Gay Pride in Jerusalem. (The baby’s name was Ali Dawabshe. Shira Banki was the sixteen year old murdered in Jerusalem). 

Writer Roxane Gay captured this troubling situation in The New York Times. “I’m personally going to start wearing a lion costume when I leave my house so if I get shot people will care,” she wrote, while acknowledging the brutality of Cecil’s death. But, she said, while “some people also mourn the deaths of Sandra Bland and Samuel DuBose, this mourning doesn’t seem to carry the same emotional tenor. A late-night television host did not cry on camera for human lives that have been lost. … He did, however, cry for a lion and that’s worth thinking about.”

When Cecil’s picture lit up the Empire State Building, I thought, why not Sandra Bland or one of the other 678 Black men and women killed in the last seven months at the hands of law enforcement? Why not that Israeli baby or teenager? Why not one of Boka Haram’s captured girls or one of the women suffering unfathomably at the hands of ISIS?

Then MSNBC announced that it was cutting several journalists: Ed Schultz, Alex Wagner, and four hosts of The Cycle, liberals all. (Joy Reid had already been demoted to “national correspondent”). 

That’s when I began to feel like I was watching a drama that was bizarrely like Out of Africa meets Citizen Kane. (Kane, you will recall, began a career in the publishing world because he was idealistic but he gradually became ruthless in his pursuit of power.)

What, I wondered – if not profit and market share - was going on with mainstream media (which now includes cable news)? Why were TV talk shows and news programs barely covering heartbreaking stories of people in distress (immigrants, refugees, captives, disaster victims) and instead cuing up footage of Cecil interspersed with true crimes stories, weather disasters, and replays of a piece of MH 370? Why were they bringing back bad boy Brian Williams and giving ho-hum Chuck Todd more talk time in place of journalists who are unafraid to do their homework or ask tough questions? In short, why are media moguls allowing Fox News to set the nation’s media agenda?

Out of curiosity I did some research. Google turned up a number of stories about females suffering in the grip of ISIS but with one exception none was more recent than 2014. (Been there, done that?) And none of them delved into the personal stories of the enslaved women. At best, there was a cursory quote or two, but nothing like the heartrending testimonials to be found via alternative sources.  The New York Post did run a story in 2015; it was about “Why are girls flocking to ISIS?” (Borderline sensationalism?)

Meanwhile, Cecil still roams on in our imaginations, kept alive by pundits, reporters and news readers whose editors and producers want to avoid tackling tragedies with a human face because their sponsors know that all the world loves a lion.

Another movie, The Wizard of Oz, also has a lion.  He longs for courage while his friend the Scarecrow wants a brain and the Tin Woodman desires a heart.

It seems to me that we are all in need of courage, intelligence, and a heart in our daily news cycle. Journalists need the courage to ask hard questions without fear of reprisal, and the people who own their outlets and employ them must exhibit intelligent judgment and a sense of priority and balance as they determine the day’s top stories. Working together, they must draw upon what we must hope remains on the road to power, and that is compassion.

As for news consumers, we need to care as much about human beings as we do about animals like Cecil. Only when we demand a more courageous and compassionate media will we have brought home our collective, truly important trophy.