[Sosfbay-discuss] Lessons learned blogging

[Wes Rolley]

Very good!

>
> May I forward your email to the GPCA CC?
>
> (I assume you have already said something like this to the
> media committee.)
>
> Gerry
>
Gerry,

If I post it, it is for public consumption, feel free to do what you 
want.  If I send it to your personal account, it isn't.

Yes, I have said something similar to the mdeia committee and to Erika 
and Larry (CoCos) directly.  I believe that Erika will be at Yolo  
presenting  a summary of trends and happenings in media that also 
includes the facts that:

- newspaper readership is declining.  Mercury News by 3 % over last 
year, the Chronicle by 16%

- non-English newspapers are consolidating even more quickly. The 
Mercury News has discontinued its Vietnamese newspaper Viet Mercury and 
replaced its Spanish language Nuevo Mundo with Fronteras, a tabloid from 
Mexico with only a one sheet local news includsion in the middle.  The 
last local news included 4 items from the Contra Costa Times.

- the discussion has to be one of how we best make use of  other media, 
talk radio, TV, Internet, street theater, whatever... think of an Andrea 
Dorey produced video entered into film festivals around California.  The 
just completed Poppy Jasper Film Festival in Morgan Hill would have been 
a good choice and I just did not think of it in time.

The plus side of Internet blogging and activist web sites is the fact 
that the people you reach are more likely to be be activists them selves 
willing to do something about the issues you bring forward..  The 
negative is that they do not reach a general audience.  It is a myth 
that "If you build it, they will come."  You have to really work at 
letting people know it is there and making it easy for them to find 
you.  Then more will come.

Another example:  I have a notification list for my PomboWatch blog. 
That list has three friendly reporters on it.  Whenever I post a major 
new entry, as I did this last time, I trigger a notification.  About the 
only ones who respond to that email are reporters who say "thanks for 
the info."

The last example is the fact that most blog software makes it easy to 
syndicate material.  The use of RSS  or Atom-XML feeds means that my 
material can show up on other blogs with no work on my part. For 
example, there is a Portland, OR hosted site called "leftyblogs.org."  
PomboWatch is syndicated on that site so that my material appears on 
leftyblogs as well as PomboWatch.  I have noticed in the stats that I am 
getting increased traffic at PomboWatch following links from leftyblogs.

Now, here is my offer.  If the GPSCC picks out a single race in which 
they want to make a major effort for 2006, I will set up and direct a 
media onslaught targeting that one race.  I don't care what it is, just 
that it has full GPSCC support and a major issue associated with it.  
With the time I spend on fighting Pombo, I will need other writers who 
can author material.  But, we can try to make this work at a very local 
level with the same intensity that it is working for us in the 11th CD.

-- 
"Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente

Wes Rolley
http://www.refpub.com/