[extropy-chat] Google Sets

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Thu Jul 8 00:16:23 UTC 2004


--- Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:
>  (7/7/04 13:47) Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> >I'd have to disagree on that. We've gotten WAY more press coverage
> in
> >the last year than ExI ever has. Google agrees, with 28,100 hits for
> >extropy (the term in general) while "Free State Project" gets 42,300
> >hits. "Extropy Institute" specifically only gets 5,870 hits on
> Google.
> >So, the FSP is more than seven times more widely known of according
> to
> >Google than ExI.
> 
> 
> But you don't know how high the quality of those "hits" is. And,
> realistically, neither group is exactly rolling in lots of mainstream
> coverage. With the FSP specifically, there seem to be very few sites
> that name lots of names and a lot of sites that refer to the group as
> "those farseeing people" or "those damned nutters."  Etc.

Okay, lets just go by media coverage:
http://www.freestateproject.org/news/media_archive/index.jsp

This page lists just some of the media coverage about the FSP. It
ignores a bit of the most recent coverage, including my interview on NH
Public Radio's "The Exchange". Beyond regional and national newspaper
articles on a daily or weekly basis, television pieces monthly, there
have been multiple articles in Liberty magazine, Reason Magazine, and
The Libertarian Enterprise even in individual issues. We've been
intimately involved in some non-FSP national news pieces, including the
secession of Killington, Vermont in March, at which yours truly was
present and presented NH and Gadsden flags to the Killington Town
Manager. We've brought national attention to breaches of civil rights
including the strip searching of 7th graders by police in a dawn school
raid in the Carolinas, the arrest of a NH gun owner in Ohio, among
others.

Öf the Free State Project hits, 40,100 have been updated in the last 3
months. 

I myself have been interviewed in the last 8 months by:
The New York Times
The New York Post
Newsday
The Boston Globe
The Valley News
The Manchester Union Leader
The Nashua Telegraph
The Concord Monitor
The Terry Dudley Show on WGXL, Lebanon, NH
The Exchange with Laura Kinnoy, NHPR (1 hour in studio interview)
LA Times
Mercury News
WMUR Channel 9 News
WCAX Channel 3 News
WBZ Channel 4 (Boston) News
FOX News Channel
CNN
The Valley Spectator
The Dartmouth Review
Associated Press reporters on several occasions, including Kate McCann,
Beverly Wang, among others.

If you haven't noticed the FSP in the news, you haven't been paying
attention. If you think its all "what nutters" coverage, you are wrong.
The only organization that tried going that way was The Daily Show on
Comedy Central. I turned em down. My friend Doug Stanhope (co-host of
The Man Show) ran interference for me, and a number of other FSP membes
they tried to con into a 'yokel' interview.

We also have celebrity endorsements, from Doug Stanhope (comedian,
co-host of The Man Show on Comedy Central and current host of Girls
Gone Wild videos) to Penn & Teller, to Don Galloway (former Ironsides
and soap star, who now writes columns for the Manchester Union Leader)
as well as:
Richard Boddie - writer, professor, lawyer, former LP Prez candidate
William A. Dunn - Chairman of Reason Foundation
Louis James - past President, Henry Hazlitt Foundation
Hubert Jongen - Chairman, Libertarian International
Aaron Russo - Former LP presidential candidate
L. Neil Smith - SF writer
Vin Suprynowicz - gun rights writer
Walter Williams - pundit, commentator
Claire Wolfe - pundit, blogger, gun rights activist
Republican Liberty Caucus 
11 state Libertarian parties 
John Stossel - ABC journalist
Eric Raymond - author and software guru
Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson
Current NH Governor Craig Benson (founder and former Chairman of
Cabletron)
Neal Boortz - radio host
Larry Pratt - Executive Director, Gun Owners of America

Notable FSP Members
Mike Badnarik, 2004 LP Presidential Candidate 
Richard Boddie 
Gary Nolan, 2004 LP Presidential Candidate hopeful 
Art Olivier, 2000 LP Vice-Presidential Candidate 
Vin Suprynowicz  
Brian Wilson, Libertarian Radio Talk Show Host and Author 
Claire Wolfe  

One thing I've discovered is the number of everyday reporters who are
libertarians....

Now, by this point, you may think I'm bragging. No, I'm trying to prove
a point I've been trying to make for more than a year on this list:
Extropy Institute needs to get a lot more hip to media relations, and
more imaginative about publicity and lobbying, than it currently is if
it wants to maintain its relevance in todays world. I think by this
point in time I've established the street cred to back up my words with
reality. In a year the FSP has handed ExI its hat in the publicity
department.

The Pro-Actionary Principle is a start, but it needs to not stop there.
ExI needs its members around the country to get a lot more active in
promoting the principle. I've been talking about it with the NH state
legislators I know, and they are all for it, as they despise the
Precautionary Principle. In the next session in November we're going to
try to get the Pro-Actionary Principle adopted as state policy for
state legislation regarding technological development. I'd suggest that
people on this list get involved in doing the same thing in your own
states. Don't just lobby, you need to demonstrate. Demonstrations get
in the news (of course, you need to send out press releases ahead of
time).

ExI can help on this by drafting model statutory language for
legislators to take to their committee discussions. I'd also suggest
that ExI, or Pro-Act, endorse the Free State Project and make a press
release to that effect. Doing so will get you access to thousands of
FSP activists around the country willing to push the PAP in their state
legislatures.




=====
Mike Lorrey
Chairman, Free Town Land Development
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                         -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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