Debriefing for “Day Of Blogging For Justice”

August 31st, 2007

Afrosphere Jena 6 Coalition

First and foremost I want to thank everybody for participating and making the day a success. That goes for bloggers as well as readers who contacted somebody in the media to urge them to pick up this critical story.

Foremost I want to thank the Advisory Group that helped me put together the press release www.pr.com/press-release/50358, pick the day and publicize the event: Zoe @ purplezoe.blogspot.com/, Villager @ electronicvillage.blogspot.com, &
Francis Holland @ afrospear.jconserv.net/

We had over 25 blogs participate from around the country. There were some great post made, and all dissemination of information helps the Jena 6; but I think a lot of us lost focus in that we missed that this specific event was to enlist the media to pick up the story. Most did not mention this to their readers and did not post the media contact list so that readers could urge media outlets to do so.

Having more people sign the petition is great, having them contact various government officials is fine, but I came up with the media strategy because obviously the number of people contacting government wasn’t sufficient enough to get them to move. I thought we needed to get the story in to the media more so that a greater number of people would know about it, and hopefully create a critical mass of outcry that government would then have to respond to.

So the ideal was to have focused intensity on one goal, rather than have all our mailing and calling being spread out all over the place.

Nonetheless I think we pulled off something good, and generated more momentum.

But to contact the media: www.fair.org/index.php?page=111
Or you can try this new one I got from Eddie Griffin: www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/

Some Early Results

I got a call first thing in the morning when I sat down in my chair at work. An on Air Radio reporter called me from Little Rock Arkansas. She hadn’t heard of the story until a caller mentioned it to her yesterday morning, and then she got a hold of our campaign. She interviewed me, and along with doing a story on it, she says she has a wire that it will go out on. I’ll be in touch with her Monday to see if I can get more specifics on where things are going with that story.

I’ve had some contact from Color of Change. If you’re going to the September 20 rally in Jena, go here and RSVP; they’re trying to coordinate the effort.

Zoe saw a 5 minute news report on MSNBC yesterday. I don’t know if our press release had anything to do with it; but I’m sure the sustained efforts of bloggers and other internet media outlets keeping this story alive did.

Edited to add, @ 2:38pm CST: Just got a call from a women who does a morning radio talk show in Youngstown Ohio. She found out about us yesterday through google alert. I was able to put her intouch with colorofchange.org who is organizing in Jena so she can have someone come on the air and organize in Youngstown.

Any Comments?

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8 Responses to “Debriefing for “Day Of Blogging For Justice””

  1. Dave J on August 31st, 2007 7:53 pm | link

    Thanks so much for your hard work and efforts in this fight, we all appreciate it. If there is anything you need me to do in the future to help out, please let me know.

  2. D. Yobachi Boswell on August 31st, 2007 7:58 pm | link

    Will do. Thanks for your participation and willingness.

  3. Bronze Trinity on September 5th, 2007 8:46 pm | link

    CNN has been posting on this for the past two days. They had live interviews with people involved. So they picked up the story. I don’t know about other news stations but getting national news coverage is good don’t you think?

    I was too busy to do more than post the press release and email it to people. I didn’t really have anything to blog about it…justice is not really my area.

    But next time ABA or Afrospear does something like this I think we should collect the media contacts and assign email addresses or websites where people would send their blog entries. So they would be volunteering to write a blog entry AND send it to one or more places. People could actually volunteer for as many sites as they want. Others could volunteer to call specific contacts. That way we would know which media sources have been contacted for sure. Other people who didn’t sign up would be free to contact who they want.

    So getting a good, recent media contact list is important, as well as sites that post press releases, allow for guest posts, post activist press releases, and post about Black issues. I have been collecting some sites at del.icio.us/Afrosphere (activism links) so that we can have lots of places to go for help. I think that this was a great effort and learning experience and in my opinion the mission was accomplished. Next time it can go even better. Great job!

  4. D. Yobachi Boswell on September 5th, 2007 9:08 pm | link

    Bronz Trinity,

    Sounds like a good plan to me, I’m wit it.

    When do you think is a good day to do it? Maybe the Monday right before Bell’s sentencing. That way you could have a drumbeat leading up to that climatic day, and we could urge the media to do substantive coverage that day.

    Also did you see my up date today with some of the latest results: www.blackperspective.net/index.php/jena-six-activism-getting-results/

    I’ve learned of more since I made that post.

  5. Bronze Trinity on September 5th, 2007 9:22 pm | link

    Shoot, I didn’t see the update :)

  6. Bronze Trinity on September 5th, 2007 9:29 pm | link

    I think actually that it should start as soon as a list of contacts is developed. Then people could sign up to contact those people once or more until the 20th. I think the media should be contacted for a week before the hearing so that everyone knows about the issue and is waiting to hear what happens. By getting attention sooner more and more powerful people may become involved and cause negative attention for the people who have power in this situation, the court. Thats the whole purpose isn’t it? To get the courts to reduce the charges? If that is the point then they need constant pressure until they drop the charges.

  7. Eddie Griffin on September 6th, 2007 8:11 pm | link

    Yobachi, I sent out an e-blast OPEN LETTER TO GOV. BLANCO to all the media contacts in the Louisiana.

  8. D. Yobachi Boswell on September 6th, 2007 8:49 pm | link

    Wow, I sent out an open letter to Gov Blanco’s office and over 70 national and local media outlets last night, responding to Blanco’s statement she made about the Jena Six last thursday.

    It’ll be posted in the Gov. and Media section at the top of this site either later today or tomorrow.

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  • D. Yobachi Boswell

  • Yobachi Boswell is creator and publisher of BlackPerspecitve.net. I’m a writer, activist and political watcher based in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve also been know to do some spoken word and MCing in my day.

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