A way to get the truth through the nation's newspapers.

[mmonk]

I was thinking that maybe paid advertising with facts about the administration and other views could be espoused and exposed through paid ads. Anyone think this could work?

[Donnachaidh]

1. WHERE is the money coming from?

And isn't it up to the papers what ads are run?

I'm not trying to cut down your idea - it IS a novel one. But I can also see the deep pockets of the RW jumping in and effectively pushing our ads on the *truth* to some dingy corner of the paper.

[mmonk]

2. I'm thinking of trying it locally with some of my money first

and gauge the process.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. This was actually done in 2003,

during the buildup to war. A non-partisan group made up of Greens, Dems, Independents and disgruntled Republicans raised enough money to buy ads in the weekly newspaper. They were researched - with citations - and invited folks to come to demonstrations and meetings. We did get some more publicity from this via the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which, despite its name, is a right wing rag. They mentioned the ad--the one I wrote about Depleted Uranium they characterized as being "wild claims by the left"--yeah, I cited that notoriously leftist paper, the Christian Science Monitor. But they did run the ad as a part of their larger article, strange to tell (I think some good folks got it slipped in). Don't know if we swayed that many hearts and minds back then--but we did get people talking. Doing the same now might work. And it wasn't too expensive since this was a weekly paper for a rural audience (the only paper in the county).

[mmonk]

4. Good effort.

My paper is owned by McClatchy. If it works locally in stirring the pot, I can ask them to run it nationally (though I might have to seek donations to do that). Beats sitting around why the cowards I helped get elected do nothing.