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Did The Reason Rally Really Happen If the Media Ignores It.

I wrote a columnist of my paper that serves millions of people about the Reason Rally before leaving for Washington. After attending and being in awe of an historic event I eagerly checked the Sunday edition to see what coverage we got. It turned out to be none. My son wrote me an email asking why he did not see any media coverage of this event that inspired his dad so much.

We have to write our newspapers that did not cover this story - the more letters the better to get the editors to take notice.

It is tough getting a letter published in my paper. I've had a few and I've had more turned down. I even had one they said they were going to feature in the Saturday edition about the pharmaceutical industry that got pulled because of nervousness about a lawsuit.

Anyway, I am proud to report to this group that this one did get published - with a picture even. I tried to keep it short and ended with a Canada angle.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/1152205--non-theists...

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Permalink Reply by Richard ∑wald on March 28, 2012 at 9:10pm

Not for me, but then I didn't sign in. It may be a cookies thing.

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Permalink Reply by annet on March 28, 2012 at 9:23pm

yep. just dawned on me that the front page is targeted like the ads. bloody google.

but the vid is worth watching anyway http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d11tcjO--70

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Permalink Reply by Jason Fleming on March 28, 2012 at 9:17pm

Adam's bit is on failblog:

http://school.failblog.org/2012/03/28/homework-class-test-being-rea...

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Permalink Reply by Nontheist Central on March 30, 2012 at 8:10pm

I didn't get to go myself and was trying to keep up on the internet with media and stuff. I found about 3 blogs and can't say that I was able to find any actual news stories about the Rally the day it happened. Definitely didn't find anything in videos that was people who were there posting little snippets from what they recorded on their phones. It was rather disappointing. I just recently found a fantastic video by The Thinking Atheist some of you may not have seen yet. Just a quick one about his thoughts on the Rally. He addresses the lack of media coverage. It's the main video on the link. Enjoy!

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Permalink Reply by Nontheist Central on March 31, 2012 at 11:00am

That should say "...didn't find any videos that weren't people who were there and posting little snippets..." That was a confusing sentence, eh?

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Permalink Reply by Godless Poutine on April 1, 2012 at 9:06am

I just posted a blog post about this topic:

http://mysecretatheistblog.blogspot.ca/2012/04/long-live-al-jazeera...

Discussing how Al Jazeera of all things has way better video coverage of the event than anyone here in North America.

So I'm experimenting with posting to Reddit (http://redd.it/rnvwh) to boost my readership and the first thing that happens is I get voted down with the following comment:

"Why would a rally to promote secularism in a country with an over 200 year old secular tradition be worthy of any news coverage?"

(http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/rnvwh/long_live_al_jazeera...)

Am I the one who's seriously out of touch here? Sometimes I wonder.

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Permalink Reply by Russell Pangborn on April 1, 2012 at 11:10am

The Toronto Star printed a letter about the reason rally and it gets good airplay in a Google search. Mostly what I pick up on a Google search is topics by insular groups like this one. So essentially there is very little media coverage of this event. Godless Poutine has pointed out that Al Jazeera did a great job. Maybe we should look at this a different way. How about writing letters commending those that did something when many were silent. We talk amongst ourselves in our closed forums and that is great but we want to reach a much larger audience.

So email Al Jezeera and email the Toronto Star and commend them. The added bonus of writing a letter to the Toronto Star is it may get published. I am sure the editors would be thrilled to get letters from all over Canada and the U.S. (maybe not as thrilled if you identified yourself as part of a group - atheist nexus - I didn't)

http://www.thestar.com/staticcontent/993465

Short letters work. So the tiny effort you made to post a comment here can be invested in a letter that will be read by many people who are not in our group.