Community News

September/October/November Articles and Commentaries at ePluribus Media Community

Over the last couple of months we received many outstanding commentaries from a very diverse group. Some were the direct result of our focus on the November 7^th elections:

• Kenneth Blackwell and Ohio's voting system: Brought to us by our leading research and collaboration team -- luaptifer and intranets. Many curious eyes examined their results, with a notable flood when RawStory picked it up.

• Its sister piece, Ken Blackwell Outsources Ohio Election Results to GOP Internet Operatives, Again, dove specifically into what appeared to be an outsourcing arrangement with the GOP system.

  Just to show how much of a team it took, here's the whole roster: luaptifer, intranets, txj, sawcielackey, kfred, wanderindiana, bronxdem, zan, GreyHawk, susie dow, indyjones48, ricardo4, silence, Biblio, Cho, standingup, avahome, DEFuning, harmonyguy, sluggojd

• Luaptifer was on a roll, with another top-read commentary and call-to-action: Election 2006 Results: The Paperless Trail of Tears

Jeff Huber continued his series, applying his verbal sword to our War in Iraq, our Leaders, and our Strategies with his latest: Gates, McCain and Lieberman: Praying the Course in Iraq

Additional commentaries from this skilled writer can be found here.

We also must thank all of the commentary participants, they have now gotten too numerous to mention, but some of the more frequent ones to look for are:

• AvaHome - Texas Humor
• RBA with his Daily News and Open Threads,
• Jim Staro with his updates on the activites of Veterans,
• Silence - Beauty for Our Souls,
• Welshman, calls Americans to task from across the ocean blue.
• Clammyc holds the neocons feet to the fire
• GreyHawk - Symbol Susan -- "Though this be madness...

With so many great pieces on the Community site, we've surely missed some quality work. Please post links to any noteworthy commentaries we missed in the comments below.

Postcards from the Publicity Cheerleader Squad

We’ve come a long way, baby. Our articles are getting picked up by an astonishing array of media outlets. With the advent of news aggregators and newsreader services developing personal newspages for readers, our work is being seen by an ever- widening circle of viewers. Google News, Google Blog Search and other services are sending our stories to individuals, professional groups and grassroots organizations alike, stateside and abroad.

We actively publicize our stories in a number of ways and it's time you knew!

• We send out ‘angles’ (the new fangled version of a press release) including the link to targeted press outlets in the mainstream media and relevant organizations.
• We e-mail a promo blurb and the link to selected internet sites such as Salon, Americablog and RawStory, etc. (who have carried our stories in the past and driven a good bit of traffic to us) and also to targeted special interest sites. For example, we will send a story on veterans’ issues to veterans’ websites in addition to rounding up all the usual suspects. We sure miss Pete Daou over at Salon since he went to work for Hillary Clinton! He was a fan of our work.
• On occasion, we use an archaic device known as the ‘telephone’ to call organizations such as The Southern Poverty Law Center and specific politicians in the House and Senate.
• We ‘promote’ stories on other well known internet sites, such as Firedoglake and Huffington Post, by joining in a relevant conversation and furnishing a link to one of our stories. It is good form to have a posting relationship established on these sites first before you start promoting stories, however, because it can become unwelcome if not done judiciously.
• Some of our writers jump into the fray to help draw attention to their work and do a terrific job of it.
• Viral marketing by casually mentioning specific stories in conversation then following it up with the exchange of a business card with the url on it is especially effective for long range brand building. The cheerleading squad also wears their ePluribus Media t shirts at every opportunity to spread the brand name, identify themselves as members of the organization as they glad-hand the masses, and hand out our ePluribus Media business cards with conservative liberality.

A welcome twist is that media organizations have started contacting US. We are being asked for reprint permission for our articles and some of our writers are being contacted by mainstream media writers and publishers. With all this growth, we could use an influx of volunteers to help market our brand. All ideas for marketing and publicity are welcome.

Journal Stories You May have Missed:

On the ePluribus Media Journal, of special note is the Five Part Series: FDR and the Unfinished Agenda by Chris White and AvaHome. They did such a wonderful job that the FDR Museum asked to link to it from their site:

---Congratulations! (2+ / 0-)
On a wonderful summary of the New Deal years. We will link to your series on our FDR Museum website.

Cordially,
Dr. Joe Plaud
FDR American Heritage Center Museum
http://www.fdrheritage.org

Aaron has been prolific and also brought us a personal insight story Corporate Responsibility: The Case of Big Tobacco with not just an update on the case progress itself, but an in-depth look at the personalities and the role he played in it's early days.

To honor our soldiers for Veterans Day, Cho and Ilona Meagher brought us a heart-breaking review of What Was Asked of Us by Trish Wood (New York: Little Brown and Company, 2006)

The series of candidate interviews continued with:

• Aaron Barlow's Bob Levis, Green Party candidate, Wisconsin's 5th Congressional District and Tony Barr Hopes to Unseat Bill Shuster in the 9^th Congressional District of Pennsylvania;
• Tim Smith continued with Keeler Leads Gate Crashing in Run for Office and OH-14 Katz plays David to LaTourette's Goliath.
• Finally, a new contributer, Minnesota Campaign Report brought us Wendy Wilde: Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District

Volunteer Opportunities

AvaHome has been very active recruiting and welcoming volunteers. If anyone wants to help, post below or email her at epluribusvolunteers@gmail.com

Our Timeline databases and stories are heating up, so JeninRI needs more volunteers to help fact check stories and the timelines. If you can help, please send her an email at timelines@epluribusmedia.org.

Don't be shy about volunteering for the data input for the timelines, editing, fact-checking, creating graphics for stories, writing book reviews, researching or as campaign season heats up, interviewing candidates! You can volunteer by posting a comment below, contacting us at epluribusvolunteers@gmail.com or editors@epluribusmedia.org.

If you have a tip, please submit it to leads@epluribusmedia.org.

If you have a story you'd like to submit for publication as an ePluribus Media article in the Journal (as opposed to posting as a commentary on Community), submit it to editors@epluribusmedia.org. For information and some guidelines, check out the submissions guidelines.

And don't forget, if you have any book buying planned, consider Powell's. Clicking through the Powell's bookstore ad at the bottom of the home page on the ePMedia Community site gives us 7.5%!

Corny as it sounds, it's true: You make the "us" in ePluribusMedia^TM a reality.