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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 11/17/10

How the Left can better market its message

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Don Smith
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The Proposal

Washington State (or Seattle-area) Democrats and progressives should adopt a standard, community-owned website. When I say "community-owned" I mean that no single person or faction controls it. Rather, representatives from various lefty groups sit on a board of directors.

The site should be edited, to maintain quality. That is, only high quality content should appear on the front page. Editing should be a shared, or rotating, responsibility. This will encourage wide adoption and discourage monopoly. But the website should be as open as possible. Deciding which opinions are too "extreme" is always a tricky matter.

At first, the website would likely be used for communication and coordination among liberal activists. Eventually, the hope is that it grows to be a formidable media source that the public, lawmakers, and outside journalists visit to get high quality progressive content.

In the long run, the aim is to develop a coherent, powerful progressive media site that the Left controls, so that we are no longer at the mercy of the editors of the Seattle Times and other closely controlled media outlets.

Sandra VanderVen characterizes the idea this way: "Create a web based marketplace of ideas."

In addition to blogs and articles, the website could have calendars and calls-to-action and videos and humor and links to other sites.

Website participants needn't all agree on priorities or details; they need only to agree to appear on the same pages and to respect the rotating editors' decisions about which content gets more visibility.

If anyone is interested in this project, please email me or visit the Proposal page. Already several dozen people (including former editors and reporters) have expressed interest in such a project.

It is within our power to effect change, but we have to be more organized.

Questions

Is the dream of organizing progressives too quixotic to be realizable?

Should the website be for all of Washington State or just for the Seattle area?

Will it be possible to get cooperation from various factions within the Democratic Party, or should this be just a progressive website? If the latter, should it be run under the auspices of the Democratic Progressive Caucus?

Some progressives are Independents or Greens. Should the website be managed independently of the Democratic Party?

Should we build a new site or convert an existing site into a shared resource?

Progressives believe in public education, public transportation, public financing of elections, public health care, and other community initiatives. Can they cooperate to build a shared website? How ironic if the Right can cooperate but the Left can't!

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Democratic Precinct Committee Officer, activist, writer, and programmer. My op-ed pieces have appeared in the Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and elsewhere. See http://WALiberals.org and http://ProgressiveMemes.org for my (more...)
 

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