Palestine Media Watch
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The Gadflies of PMW
 
If you would like to become a media gadfly, please send a note to pmwatch@zworg.com. For more information on the tasks involved in being a PMW media gadfly, please go to: become a media gadfly page
The best way of learning about our gadflies is to read their work.

How to be an effective gadfly

(1) Send one letter to the editor every day, or as often as you can.

(2) Establish contact with someone on the editorial board/staff.

(3) Make sure you don't flood him/her with info -- i.e., be an intelligent gadfly not just a nuisance.

(4) Always be cordial and polite -- your job is to influence their opinion and to inform them.

(5) Always work with them on the assumption that they are willing to be fair if informed and given the chance (don't turn it into a shouting match or a tug of war).

(6) Establish live contact: e.g., give them a call.

(7) Try to set up meetings with your contact.

How PMWatch helps you be a better gadfly

Palestine Media Watch's mission is to make it as easy as possible for its members to engage and challenge the media on their coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. To this end, PMW has done the following:

(1) Provided easy access to columns written on the crisis. You can read the latest pro-Israeli columns by clicking on: http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/otherside/index.html

(2) Provided a reading packet that gives you all the amunition you could ever need to break the facile, lazy and easily refutable points and arguments regularly made by columnists and editorialists. Go to: http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/talkingpoints/

(3) Provided actual samples of letters written and published by your fellow pmwatchers to give you a feel of the style to use, the tone to write in, etc. You can find these letters at: http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/db/gadflies/display_gadflies.asp

(4) Provided information for quickly contacting the media: http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/contact/media.html

(5) If you want to focus on one particlar paper or one particular columnist, please go to:

Please make it part of your daily routine to dispatch one letter a day, even if it is one small paragraph. Believe me, we can have a big impact on the media if we displayed intelligent persistence and dedication as a watch group.

BTW: all of the above links are accessible from the main page.