(Cross posted at
For Our Future.)
Iara Peng, the executive director of Young People For, has written an article outlining the training programs available to conservative youth. She contrasted that with the opportunities offered for young progressives and argued that the left needs to put more money into youth outreach. I wrote about this issue almost two years ago. I agree with the general premise of her article, but I think Peng ignores a major failure of progressive movement's outreach programs for young people.
It's not enough to train youth to be activists and organizers. The left needs to invest in building a training infrastructure that nurtures young people to be strong public proponets of progressive values. Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin didn't come from nowhere. They were created by the right-wing media machine. If the progressives want to win the battle of ideas, we need to build the next generation of pundits and intellectuals.
The right understands the necessity of well-trained spokespeople. According to
a list complied by Young People For, conservatives have at least 5 programs geared towards young people that contain a media training component. Liberals might complain about the bias of Fox News, but the right has a much deeper media bench than progressives. The left can come up with a greatest issue frames in the world, but it doesn't matter if we can't get our message out through the popular media.
Right now, there are two major training programs available to progressive youth--Campus Progress and Young People For. As far as I know, neither has a strong media component. Young people are not being prepared to articulate liberal values publicly. Sure, Campus Progress teaches youth how to write and blog, but that is very different from being able to win a debate with a young conservative on CNN.
Thankfully, the left could organize a media training program fairly easily. Fenton Communications, a leading public interest advertising firm, already provides free and relatively cheap trainings for non-profits. When I was one of the spokespeople for the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, a person for Fenton did a quick training for our activists. Although the training only lasted 20 minutes, it taught me lessons about media work that I still use today.
If progressives are serious about winning the battle of ideas, it's time to invest in institutions that support young people. We need to be taught to articulate our values in a way that can reach the general public. The right has understood this truth for a long while--it's time for progressives to get with the program.