| Four Things You Can Do Today
Here are four ways that you can help expand opportunity in America.
1. Join Our Communications Effort
Help us create an online conversation to illustrate and improve upon the Opportunity Frame.
In collaboration with The SPIN Project, we have developed a positive Frame that we believe can unite social justice messages and constituencies across a range of issues. With the production of our toolkit, American Opportunity, we've taken the first steps in articulating the Opportunity Frame. Now we need your help to refine it.
Write to us with your questions, critiques and case studies. Help us see where the frame is effective and where it is lacking. Our response to your feedback will be posted on our website and distributed via our eNewsletter: Opportunity in Action. Help us keep this vital conversation about progressive messaging alive.
Submit Feedback>>
2. Write a Letter to . . .
The Editor
Write to your local newspapers and make sure that their coverage accurately reflects the state of opportunity in America.
Write a letter>>
Your Representative
Write to and urge them to use their power to expand opportunity in America. As a constituent, they are your voice in Washington. Make sure they are representing your views.
Currently, you can write letters on the following topics pertaining to the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina:
3. Be A Media Watchdog
In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, there was very little coverage of the race and class disparities revealed by the storm. An analysis by Think Progress determined that, in the 7 days following Katrina, only 22 out of approximately 1,300 stories on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN focused on race or class as the main topic of discussion.
Don’t let history repeat itself. Contact the cable networks and demand that their coverage of Katrina encompass a wide range of stories – including racial and economic inequality – and encourage them to book a diverse guest list representative of all communities affected by the storm.
We suggest the messages below, phrased in your own words so that each communication represents a unique call for quality coverage:
Tell the story of Katrina survivors’ continuing struggle for opportunity. Hundreds of thousands of Katrina victims still lack adequate housing, employment, and health care, and many have been shut out of decisions about the rebuilding process. Race, gender and income continue to affect the recovery process. These stories need to be told if America is to live up to its ideal as a land of opportunity.
Cover the challenges to opportunity for our nation. Katrina revealed the poverty, racial inequality, and abandonment that exist in many parts of our country. News outlets have a responsibility to cover those conditions, as well as promising policy solutions.
Fair and accurate coverage requires a diversity of viewpoints. News programmers must reach beyond their stable of talking heads and include in the debate a diverse range of Gulf Coast residents and evacuees, advocates, researchers, and policymakers from inside and outside the region.
Contact. To contact cable news networks, or specific programs, visit their website. Most cable news shows like Meet the Press or Anderson Cooper 360 will have individual contact forms on the program's webpage. If you can't find that, use the general contact form, usually located at the top or bottom of the network homepage.
Learn More>>
4. Get Local
Building the national will to expand opportunity starts at home. Here are some things you can do in your local community.
Get Local>>
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