You have to articulate what do you want to accomplish from
the interview. Of course, being interviewed by a journalist
might be an interesting and flattering experience, however,
if this is the only reason you are doing the interview, you
might be doing more harm than good. If you cannot explain
exactly why you are doing the interview and what you hope
to accomplish, you will not be able prepare properly.
Obviously, you want to present a positive view of ash, but
this is not enough. The real question is: What do you hope to accomplish by presenting this positive view? In answering
this question we have to think on one hand, what do we want
for ash and for ashers, and on the other hand, we have to
remain realistic.
For example, the goal of getting suicide legalized is
probably unrealistic. However, we can set the following goals:
- Discourage readers to act against ash (for example, by trolling, or trying to close down ash forums and web sites).
- Make potential ashers be aware of our existance and how ash
may be good for them, and thus
possibly may find ash and benefit from it.
There are probably other possibilities. I prefer
the last agenda. I do not think that readers can
do much against ash, so I do not think it is important
to set "discouraging action against ash" as a goal. However,
potential ashers may benefit from finding us, and media
coverage
is a good way to advertise our existence. Even if the url of
ash sites and the name of ash-related newsgroups are not given,
potential ashers with knowledge that such forums exist will set
out looking for them. So, I think this latter goal is both
beneficial and realstic.
You can choose whatever agenda you want, or create a new one,
as long as you have an agenda, and a plan to help you
achieve it.
Based on our research and agenda, we try to summarize a "game plan",
focusing only on a small number of the better key messages
and replies.
For each agenda we need three to four messages to focus on. No more.
The following are some possible agenda (listed according to increased
pessimism) and some possible relevant
KeyMessages:
- Agenda: discouraging action against ash (optimistic game plan).
- Message: Openness, rational thought and more happiness/ less pain.
- Message: Ash frees other groups from people who would otherwise bring
everybody else down.
- Agenda: discouraging action against ash (pessimistic game plan).
- Message: Freedom of expression
- Message: Communication on the internet cannot be blocked
- Agenda: Reach potential ashers
- Message: Focus on the benefits of readers. Having somebody to talk to.
- Message: Friendships. There were marriges on ash.
The difference
between the pessimistic and optimistic game plans addressing the
agenda of discouraging action against ash, is that in the former
we are pessimistic about our ability to convince people that ash
is positive, and thus we focus on messages which explain why
acting against ash is either useless or causes more harm than good.
In the optimistic game plan we hope that by explaining that
ash is positive, people will have no motivation to act against
ash to begin with.
The final agenda is the most pemissitic since we are giving up on
addressing non-ashers in any way. Instead we focus on addressing
potential ashers.
