Bernard McGuirk

Consider this post the result of my taking a good idea and running with it.

A letter writing campaign is more than writing the letter. Believe me, I know. While in college, I helped coordinate letter writing campaigns for Amnesty International. With AI, things are slightly easier because they refine a form letter for you. We printed the letters, learned about the causes (sometimes coupling them with presentations to the public), set up an outpost in a high traffic area, and we convinced people to read and to sign the letters. And that was merely one step for the letter signing activist and one step out of many for us.

So starting a letter writing campaign from scratch requires a little more work, unless there are websites who already have form letters. If you have a form letter, some of the work has been done for you. For the Imus situation, I understand that the National Organization for Women has taken up the massive hint they should be involved in this matter where Imus publicly insulted black women. They have form letters to the station manager Chuck Bortnick (most direct superior of Imus), CBS Communications Director Karen Mateo (CBS Radio owns the station generally), and MSNBC Television (they hype the show like it's its favorite play cousin). Now, if you want to get someone fired, those three people are good people to try to convince, right? Yes...but in our money-driven corporate media, do you think the letters telling them to cease and desist will be enough? No doubt they play a role, but will they be enough?