Friday, May 13, 2005

Message to the blogsphere...

I sent this message to several of my favorite blogs. Hopefully, I get a response.

Last Wednesday I sent out a press release about the Commons Co-op. It is a student run project dealing lowering greenhouse gas emissions by energy conservation and planting 1500 trees. The students at my school organized the project and achieved an 18% lowering of the schools electricity consumption and have lowered the schools net carbon emissions 100%. This is a great story on many levels. We use our blog to communicate with our community. It has been wonderful getting the kids to realize that their actions and writing mean something.

The problem is that I cannot get the TV stations in my area to cover this story. I called WCAX and WPTZ and talked to George Wilson and Tom Hallock. I got the complete run around. While they said they were interested they did not show up. This experience just reinforces some of the critiques of mainstream media. They are rather selective gatekeepers who will report stories that boost ratings and ignore positive stories that do not fit their political or economic model. Moreover, they are gatekeepers and trendsetters. The editorial board of a local news station can set the agenda and highlight an issue of importance in the community or ignore a problem. While I do not think that George and Tom are bad people, I do wonder what other positive news in my community that I am missing. Life is not dominated by murders and political scandal. People are raising good kids, companies are expanding and life just might be improving for lots of people. Sure there are problems, but there are a lot of people working on solutions. Unless these stories are told the negativity will continue. That seems to be a big part of the problem today. We don’t dream of a better world and have few popular examples of individuals creating positive change in our communities.

Since WCAX and WPTZ did not publish the story, I’m asking you to link to our blog. This project that the students created deserves some recognition. These kids are making a difference and they just may come up with a solution to some of the world’s problems.

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