Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant Communities - ILRC

Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant CommunitiesJanuary 2003Lecture/Discussion: Deciding whether and how media work will be helpful for your issue(15 minutes)Will media work be helpful? To whom? Why? Whom will it affect? Could it potentially damageour allies or us? Who should ultimately decide?Example 1An undocumented woman is seriously exploited in her job. Her employer makes herwork twenty hours a day cleaning the house and taking care of the employer’s elderlyfather. The employer pays her only $50.00 a day plus room and board. The employer hasthreatened to call the INS if the woman complains about her job situation. An agencytrying to help her has to decide whether doing a press conference will be helpful, orwhether it might risk bringing her to the attention of the INS. The person or people whowould either benefit or suffer the most should ultimately decide whether to do mediawork around the issue.Example 2Immigrant service groups in San Francisco had two goals—promoting naturalization andcriticizing the INS for processing naturalization applications too slowly. Some decidedthat the media would be more interested in a story criticizing the government. Others,however, warned that stories in the media about delays in naturalization woulddiscourage people from applying, which would defeat their other important goal.Decide exactly what aspect of the issue to feature, and pick an appropriate and sympatheticexample to use to illustrate it to the media.ExampleA 4-year-old may be a more appealing and sympathetic news subject than an adult whohas a history of criminal problems. Often you want something or someone sympathetic.Will the media be interested in the issue? One way to find out is by calling someone from themedia and asking. This is especially true if you have already established a contact within themedia.Will publicizing the issue offend someone who could actually help you get what you want?ExampleAn agency decides to do a press conference criticizing the principal of a school forexpelling the child of a leader. However, the agency was not aware that the PTA hadtaken on the leader’s cause and that the PTA felt that the principal was about to changeher mind regarding the leader. After the negative publicity, the principal decided to standher ground on expelling the leader’s child. It is best to investigate the issues, the peopleconcerned, and what else is being done before going ahead with the conference.Decide whether you have the resources to do the press conferences. For example, is there aperson directly impacted by the issue who would be willing to participate in the conference? Do6-3