So...last night I called KABC, a talk radio station in Los Angeles, to refute a few statements by a host there by the name of John Phillips. He was reading something that someone had posted on the the Occupy Wall Street forum that was basically a wish list "list of demands". Of course, this host (and a few other right-wing/corporate media sites) jumped on it - of course they would, this one person on a listserv was advocating stuff that was easy to mock, and obviously they left off the note from OWS admin saying this was a forum post and not an actual "list of demands".
Well, I eventually got on-air by tricking the screener into thinking I agreed with them - of course, they wouldn't put me on the air if I was disagreeing with them and bringing logic to the discussion. Which got me to thinking...I really think we could bring the voices of the millions that support Occupy Wall Street but can't go or don't want to go to an event to the fore by asking them to call up right wing radio and countering the disinformation - maybe call it OCCUPY THE AIRWAVES... A lot of these lies gain traction because we don't take the time to counter it, especially in the venues a lot of people receive this bad information, and this stuff is so easy to counter.
A few years ago I was involved with this great Los Angeles organization called Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, and at ICUJP I put together a workshop called "Don't Hate the Media - Become the Media! (thanks, Jello Biafra...) We put together a Media Guide that has information of how to most effectively make your voice heard through various print, online and radio/TV outlets, and we also included information that will help in making those calls count when you enter the "lion's den". After all, they are OUR airwaves.
Is this information that would be valuable for you? Would it help you to make your voice heard in venues that you have not ventured into?
What do you all think...can we OCCUPY THE AIRWAVES?