A few months ago, I wrote a post on ‘How to influence stuff‘. My motivation for this was that I’m becoming increasingly convinced that it’s easier than people think to have influence organisations and individuals to change or do stuff differently. People assume that it’s hard and then don’t try, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Here I want to talk about some of the stuff I’ve tried that didn’t work, because it would be remiss of me to only talk about the stuff that did work.
What hasn’t worked
Contacting podcasts
Similar to what I said in the first post about getting websites/organisations to change stuff, I try asking podcasts to make corrections to factually incorrect statements, especially when I think it’s an important topic.
In this podcast, the host said some factually incorrect (and frankly, defamatory) things about the Good Food Institute. The most surprising to me was that the host claimed GFI was a business that could be sold to Monsanto. GFI is a charity, and can decidedly not be sold to Monsanto. I emailed the host and asked them to change this and other wrong things. They refused, and even attacked my character. Luckily, it didn’t escalate further, but this is an example of some wasted emails.
I also emailed Sam Harris after he misrepresented the field of wild-animal suffering research on his podcast (through ignorance, rather than malice, I’m sure – I’m usually a big fan of Harris’ podcast and work). I emailed him asking for a correction to be issued, but never heard back.
I’m not sure I did anything particular wrong in either of these cases, it’s just a matter of not being 100% successful. I still think you are more likely to affect change in this way than you probably think. I did have some minor success with the Skeptics Guide to the Universe when they spoke about charity and overhead. They claimed something to the effect of ‘a charity with 10% overhead is always better than one with 20% overhead’ (if you are familiar with effective altruism, you will instantly see why this is not necessarily true).
The did read my comments in full on the podcast which added nuance, however they had a minor retreat to their original position before ending the segment. I’ll still chalk that up as a win.
Op-eds and letters to the editor
I’ve written a lot of op-eds, opinion pieces and letters to the editor, mostly in Australian local and national newspapers, and am still yet to get one published. Part of me wants to chalk this up to the fact that the things I’m pitching are controversial and therefore not something the papers want to publish (e.g. “Care about X? Then go vegan.”). But part of me thinks there has to be more to it. There must be tricks.
The below are some tips that have been offered to me, mostly by Jacy Reese (who has been successful at getting op-eds etc. published on topics similar to what I write about).
- Make sure you find the personal email address of the opinion editor, or at the least.
- Calling them and making a personal contact is even better. Engaging with them on social media, especially Twitter, could be a good way to do this. Bonus points if you can make it relevant to something they work on.
- If a journalist writes about something you can comment on, just try emailing them saying “Hey, I’m a source, reach out if I can be useful”.
- Lead with your credentials, especially if they are relevant, and if you have published anything before (even online articles) lead with a mention of your best one.
- Have your submission text in the body of the email rather than an attachment. It is more likely to get viewed, and may allay and concerns of viruses.
- Make sure the submission is timely, especially relating to a recent major news event.
Social media
I use social media a lot – arguably too much. I sometimes use Twitter and Facebook to try and pressure organisations into changing their position, much in the same way as I use email as I mentioned in the previous post (sometimes I use both). I don’t seem to have a lot of success with this – I do better with email or phone calls. I think there is a decent chance that social media is just too easy to brush over or ignore. There might be an argument for a concentrated social media campaign involving a lot of people, but as one person you’re unlikely to do much, especially for a big organisation, unless you’re pretty famous.
Three notable examples of times I’ve tried to influence via social media are:
- I tried to convince a BBQ day for prostate cancer (or something) that they were being super hypocritical because of the impact of processed/red meat on prostate cancer. They just gave me some stock-standard responses.
- I got a non-vegan meal on a flight after I ordered a vegan meal, and they ended up having no vegan meals on board. I tried to a) get them to change their policy (their meals listed as ‘vegan’ were all non-vegan) and b) get a refund via social media, but got nowhere. In the end, I called them and got a $100 flight voucher (if you ever order a vegan meal and don’t get one, don’t forget to try and claim your voucher!).
- I often leave Facebook comments on posts by Greens (an Australian political party) members, calling into attention their hypocrisy (they’re all about environment but are anti-GMO, anti-nuclear and pro-animal agriculture). The party or members have never responded, but I once called their office and said I was a past supporter of the Greens (not untrue) but was concerned that their blatant hypocrisy was harming their reputation. The staffer thanked me. As an aside, there’s something to be said for approaching such conversations as a concerned supporter rather than an angry external.
I also spend a lot of time debating people online. Mostly, this just makes me angry. A few times, I have been able to shift someones’ opinion, but most of the time, we talk past each other. I think there are definitely better things one can do with their time. I’ve even gotten a few death threats, which isn’t great. I sometimes try to salvage some of my effort by taking the good parts of my comments and turning them into blog posts.
Others
As well as successfully contacting a bunch of famous/important people for advice or help, I’ve been unsuccessful with a bunch as well. Same goes for scholarships, entering essay/writing competitions and correcting news articles. Not much to say here – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Volume (as well as actually trying) is the key.