Environment Task Force Newsletter
Ohio State University Extension
Winter, 1998, v1 #4

Beyond the Soundbite: Citizen Action Groups Make Their Points

Jackie LaMuth, Franklin County Community Development Agent

Individuals have been forming citizen action and special interest groups as long as there have been laws, regulations, situations and conditions affecting them that they oppose or support. And often they are successful in stopping or changing the outcome of an issue or action they oppose.

Small numbers of local citizens with limited resources often have been credited with heavily influencing public opinion to cause a school levy to fail, a manufacturing plant to close or an airport not to expand. Against the considerable resources of big business and government, how do they do it?

Through the years, citizen action and special interest groups have learned how to use their resources to maximize impact with the news media and to tie up the resources of the sponsor of the issue they oppose. They study the tendencies of the news media and the habits of their opponents. They develop a plan with a timetable.

In the book Fighting Toxics: A Manual for Protecting Your Family, Community and Workplace, the writers recommend a boiler plate approach when preparing a local campaign:

• Minimize time in the library, maximize time spent on the politics of the issue.
• Gather information but don't do detailed research on every possible target.
• Be clear about your objectives.
• Know the hot issues.
• Know the problem sites and the politically important locations.
• Learn about any media interest and any past coverage.
• Gather information using the Freedom of Information Act and Right to Know.
• Be pro-active; ask the opposition to provide facts and figures about the issue that are not found in other materials.
• Tie up the opposition's resources by making statements that call for a response from the opposition. Put the pressure on the opposition to prove their facts and figures are more accurate than the citizen action group's claims. When decision time is close, ask questions that may take awhile to answer, and make them the focus of a media event.
• Take advantage of the tendency of scientists and science-oriented officials to want to be accurate, detailed and to use technical terms when they describe or explain the finer points of an issue.
• Create short, rhythmic, rhyming slogans to catch the public's and the media's interest.

In the book Not in Our Backyard, the authors explore the landmark incident that centered on efforts of the Clamshell Alliance, a citizen action group that was opposing the construction of the Seabrook nuclear power station in Jaffrey, N.H. The Clams studied the opposition, the politics and the economics of the situation and investigated the interests and timetables of the local media. Their media strategies included choosing:

• A weekday or Saturday morning when the media is starved for attention.
• A bare-bones press release three to five days before an event is going to take place.
• Slow news times; avoiding big news times like elections, disasters and strikes.
• A location that is familiar to the media such as the statehouse or courthouse.
• A press conference less than 30 minutes in length.
• A location with visual interest.

Citizen action group members believe one of their most powerful weapons can be the arrogance of the established leadership in government and business. By not taking citizen concerns seriously, they can find themselves unprepared and in a defensive stance, trying to justify and explain their plans and trying to dispel and neutralize claims made by common citizens.