PR

As I continue to focus the goals of this project, I have drafted up some ideas as to how to characterize the needs of the current market:

* The mainstream media shapes political discourse in ways that are often unseen, and is therefore accused of having either a political or economic bias.
* Claims of liberal media bias have created a deep distrust of objective mainstream news and increased the demand for a more alternative and partisan press.
* The political discourse is becoming increasingly politically polarized and partisan, and the two parties are talking at each other and not to each other.

One really helpful link that one of my advisors gave to me was from an article that Peter Broderick wrote about "Maximizing Distribution."

Broderick emphasizes the importance of creating a web presence and reaching the core audience before the project is released:

During the filmmaking process, the filmmakers will have one to three years to learn how to reach their core audience most effectively. They will also have time to create an effective Web presence. This will enable them to build a valuable mailing list as they are creating awareness for their film within the target.

I have been noticing that there are a number of articles questioning the relevance of network news since tonight is Tom Brokaw’s last broadcast as the NBC Nightly News anchor.

The Echo Chamber documentary focuses on the network news because of the influence that the media logic of the electronic medium of news has on the national political discourse...

This is a meta-blogging post to analyze how I can use the blogging forum as a means to overcome my writers block.

I’ve been "slogging" through the process of writing up my business plan. I’ve made quite a lot of progress, but I’ve hit a wall.

I then discovered something very interesting yesterday – that blogging can provide an interesting way to overcome my writer’s block.

BLOGGING WRITING STYLE
This business plan was going to be mailed out to a few key producers and funders. When you’re writing to a few people, then you try to make it as polished and perfect as possible.

I'm writing up various parts of my business plan, and thought that the "Market Demand" section resonated with the cultural aspects of academic bias that I briefly discussed in the previous post.

Below is a rough draft that hasn't been proofread yet, but I thought I would share what I have and welcome any feedback.

MARKET DEMAND

There is a strong demand for hard-hitting investigative reporting on complex issues, especially regarding the performance of the mainstream media leading up to the war in Iraq.

There is also an evolving paradigm shift for how our society views the role of mainstream journalism in our democracy. There is an increasing level of doubt as to whether the mainstream television news media can adequately fulfill their obligations of informing the electorate about the vital issues of the day.

I sent out a notice with to my volunteer transcribers today. There are 26 outstanding transcripts that should really start to flow in within the next 2-3 weeks.

I have another 16 to interviews to load in and ship out, but I have to back up my harddrive first and I'm working on the business plan. This is the bottleneck to what funders, potential producers and fiscal sponsors will want to see.

I'm researching self-distribution options for my business plan -- It could turn out that the open-source content development model may be a valuable marketing tool that allow me to bypass the normal routes of getting a distributor to take care of getting this film into the hands of Americans. This is still a decision that can be made down the road when the film is shaping up and I am able to get more feedback to help me know what'll work best.

Here is a message I just sent out to my volunteers:

Greetings all,

I hope you're all taking some time to grieve this loss.

It has been such a heartbreaking week to see the exploitation of so-called moral values pardon an endless list of Bush's sins.

I thought I'd share some thoughts on the election, and try to frame current events in the context of what it means to be volunteering for this project.

I wish it didn't end up this way, but clearly The Echo Chamber is something that is needed now more than ever.

I hope that this project can be used a tool to help bring back rationality and critical thinking to this extremely irrational situation.

Thanks to wah at Quantum Philosophy for the plug over at the Daily Kos comments.

In my brief effort to start promoting the site a couple of weeks ago, I asked him to help spread the word.

I have received a couple of volunteer researchers from his plug including a "third-year measurement and statistics graduate student." Awesome.

Someone noticed my mention of lobbying journalists in the comments. I have alerted a number of investigative journalists that I interviewed about my timelines (UPDATE June 6, 2005: these timelines currently offline), but I'm not sure if anyone is using them yet.

Atrios dissects the latest Bush ad and revists the Bush PR Campaign to sell the Congressional Resolution as a vote for Peace.

On September 19th, during the fourth week of the PR campaign to sell the war, Bush said:

If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force. But it's -- this will be -- this is a chance for Congress to indicate support. It's a chance for Congress to say, we support the administration's ability to keep the peace.

The Bush Administration began to sell the war in Iraq to the American public on August 26th, 2002 and continued their highly-coordinated public relations campaign for 30 weeks until March 19, 2003.

The following sections outline the distinct phases of this Public Relations campaign to sell the war.

CASTING IRAQ AS A THREAT
LINKING PREEMPTION WITH IRAQ
PREEMPTION DROPPED, BUT NO ONE NOTICES
LEADING UP TO SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1441
MISINTERPRETATION OF 1441
PERMISSION SLIP VS. GLOBAL TEST
WAR ALREADY AUTHORIZED TWELVE YEARS AGO?
FAILING TO CHALLENGE THE LEGALITY OF THE IRAQ WAR
COUNTDOWN TO WAR AND NO LOOKING BACK
COUNTDOWN TO WAR IN THEIR OWN WORDS