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Media

When your goal is to promote human rights, the importance of media as a public education tool cannot be overestimated. Through media you can reach a broad audience to publicize discrimination of women within local communities, demonstrate how they constitute violations of international human rights law, and call for a remedy.

Although many of you are familiar with media work, there are few unique elements to working with media on local CEDAW implementation. First, in addition to increasing the visibility of discrimination against women and girls in your community, you need to get the word out about the importance of implementing human rights standards within local communities in the United States. The problem is those topics-women’s rights and human rights-are usually covered by two different groups of journalists: the local writers and the international bureau writers. You will probably need to decide which group of writers to target and then educate them about both elements. In the best case scenario with a lot of time, you will be able to target both. In most cases, journalists will not automatically be excited about implementing human rights. You will have to convince them.

Some guidelines for accessing the media:

• One section of your coalition should be solely dedicated to media. They may work on other things, but who has responsibility for media work should be clear. They should coordinate media outreach; draft op-eds, press releases, and letters to the editor; and pitch articles to journalists. All of these actions should be done in consultation with the rest of the coalition.
• Start your media work right after your coalition is formed by reaching out to local editorial boards and reporters. You can educate them on the issues and regularly feed them feature articles on women’s human rights in the area.
• Reach out to alternative media, including radio stations.
• Monitor the local press and write letters to the editor when you highlight how abuses against women would be prohibited under CEDAW.
• Draft press releases for relevant events: public hearing, ordinance passage, etc. The press release should include what you are asking for and why you need it. Make the examples representative but also something that grabs attention. You should include quotes from representatives of the lead organizations. To the extent that the public can get involved, you should include information on ways to do so.
• Develop a press packet for all events and have at least two persons available at such events.
• Don’t forget to cultivate press contacts and to give them plenty of advance warning about actions.

In San Francisco, we did not have enough money to have an extensive media plan so we focused on getting press coverage for the public hearing and for the passage of the CEDAW ordinance. We also did national outreach on the latter, in order to encourage more communities to consider implementing human rights. Our efforts were most successful when we had a strong press release and conducted comprehensive follow up with journalists. Media work takes time, more than you would probably think.

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