Day 13 of the 40 days for life blogathon

NOTE: I wrote this really fast, and am half asleep. Please excuse typos and general ranty nature of this post. 

A believe that if mainstream media is not covering an issue fairly or completely, then it is the job of advocates to put proper coverage out there through whatever means necessary. This concept is widely adapted by the growing Occupy movement, who has been live streaming their movement in response to not getting coverage from mainstream media sources.

While I think creating alternative media sources is essential – is it enough?

Mainstream media does a terrible job covering abortion-related issues as well. When we held the trust women rally as part of the Freedom of Choice Ohio lobby day the media refered to our activists as “abortion rights” supporters, and our foes on the other side of the state house with Faith2Action the group behind the heartbeat bill as “anti-abortion rights” supporters. Now I am not a huge fan of pro-life and pro-choice, but these labels are even worse!

I appreciate alternative media sources such as Bitch and Bust that provide a feminist perspective on current affairs. But again my questions, are these alternatives enough?

I say that because, how many people subscribe and read Bust, compared to main stream media sources? I feel many of these alternative media sources are only read by those who already agree with their presentation of issues. It is preaching to the choir.

This became very apparent to me as I embarked on this blogathon. I realized, there is actually quite a lot of women-positive content on the internet related to abortion. The problem was, this content wasn’t reaching mainstream America. Again, it was mainly preaching to the choir. Similarly, when I attended an abortion speak out, most of the people at the event were huge activists in the local pro-choice community. While I was glad to see them there, they already are supportive of women who have abortion. Most of them even work in abortion clinics and hear the stories of women first hand. It is like all this good important content is saturated among those that already understand the breadth of the issue.

How do we reach a broader audience?

Then again, for me, many of these media were fuel for my “feminist awakening” if you will. Maybe these media sources are capable of turning “low-hanging-fruit” activists into full ledge rally-going, phone-banking monsters of the revolution! For example, Amplify has been a place for me to not only explore my values and beliefs, but then practice voicing them loudly and proudly to all that might stumble across my posts. Before blogging here I considered myself and activist, but through my further interactions with progressive media here on other sites, I have been motivated and inspired to take my work further.

All in all, my main question is, how do we do more? How can we have a larger impact? How do we reach a more diverse crowd? How do we further create sincere and honest dialogue? I guess if anyone had those answers we wouldn’t be fighting these same battles.

Well, for now I will keep adding my opinion to the mountain of others floating around the internet. I suppose even if my posts help one person, it was worth putting out there. While reach is important when trying to be strategic and impactful, sometimes you need to start somewhere, which can be just one person.