Introduction to DawnWatch

Mission Statement

The DawnWatch mission is to encourage mainstream media to cover animal issues well, so that people can make informed lifestyle choices in line with their own true values.

We accomplish our mission via:

• Daily email alerts with calls to action for media feedback that’s positive and informative. We help activists befriend the media on behalf of
• Our media savvy pitches to TV news, including those that lead to our annual turkey rescue being seen by hundreds of thousands of people via mainstream media, and op-eds placed in influential
• Our events that bring animal advocates and media together to form and further consolidate invaluable

We focus on mainstream media so that instead of singing to our own choir we can influence people who like to get their news from well-established sources.

Though major media is incomparably influential, it is surprisingly easy to influence. We train activists to train the media just as they would train a beloved rescue dog – with persistent and consistent praise, encouragement, and gentle corrections; rarely with a harsh tone and never with a beating.

The New York Times influences media everywhere, the Washington Post influences legislators, the Los Angeles Times influences the profoundly influential entertainment industry, the Wall Street Journal influences the markets and Fox News influences about half of congress. When we color the content of those outlets, we change the world.

TONE:

DawnWatch is nonpartisan and known for its inviting tone. We are a vegan organization that is inclusive rather than exclusive.
We welcome anybody working on any aspect of animal liberation regardless of their political leaning or current commitment to a vegan lifestyle. We seek common ground and a way to move forward.

DAWNWATCH MEDIA ALERTS: Since 1999 DawnWatch has been sending out regular alerts about animal oriented stories in the major media, encouraging animal advocates to respond with comments and letters to the relevant media outlets. The focus has been almost exclusively on major, widely circulated US media, but now that we have become a nonprofit and are growing, we are in the process of widening our reach, both internationally and within US states and cities, to help people engage more with their local media where they are likely to have the most impact. (Learn more about alerts below.)

DAWNWATCH WRITING — OP-EDS, ARTICLES, BOOK CHAPTERS:  Beginning in 2003, Karen Dawn has had opinion pieces published in leading newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, UK Guardian and Washington Post, most solo written but some co-written with Professor Peter Singer. She has also had articles published in The Progressive magazine, and chapters in various animal advocacy anthologies. Writing those pieces is time-consuming and effective but not lucrative. DawnWatch’s new nonprofit status and fundraising ability makes it possible for that work to continue. Please check it out here.

DAWNWATCH TURKEY RESCUE: In 2008, two live turkeys, Bruce and Emily, were in Karen Dawn’s Pacific Palisades home over Thanksgiving. The aim in having the avian guests was to get positive, friendly publicity for turkeys at their most vulnerable time of the year. The Palisades turkey pardon was such a hit with friends, neighbors and the media that it became an annual tradition. It has been featured on local Los Angeles stations such as ABC, NBC and KTLA numerous times, as well as on national ABC Now, CNN and the Fox Business News Network. It has been covered three times in the Los Angeles Times and has been picked up by the Associated Press, thereby being covered in hundreds of papers. As a demonstrably successful way to get positive media for the idea of vegan Thanksgivings it has become an official DawnWatch project, now celebrated with the DawnWatch Turkey Pardon Party, where we cuddle turkeys and ask them to pardon our species for sins such as the horror of factory farming. (Note: Karen Dawn and DawnWatch are entirely different from Karen Davis and United Poultry Concerns. Learn more about the DawnWatch Turkey Rescue here.)

The following explains DawnWatch media alerts, the backbone of DawnWatch work:

The letters to the editor page is one of the most widely read pages of most papers – national and local. As letters pages and comments sections are seen by decision makers as barometers of public opinion, letters and comment may have more impact than you can imagine.

DawnWatch will not tell you what to write. We will provide opportunities by sending you links to articles that make it easy to respond. Please send short notes written entirely in your own words. Some editors have stated that they avoid publishing letters that are clearly part of a campaign. They are looking for responses from their audience.

The only strict instruction from DawnWatch will be to be nice! The media are powerful and animals need powerful friends. DawnWatch hopes to help the animal advocacy world befriend the media.

It isn’t always easy to be nice. Sometimes a journalist has written something we find so upsetting we feel that the journalist deserves to be insulted. That’s when we have to remember that some of the greatest animal rights activists used to be hunters. Most of us used to eat meat. We changed our ways because somebody showed us a different way of looking at things, not because they insulted us. If we alienate a member of the media who may have eventually, even years down the line, become a supporter, we vent our anger at the expense of animals.

If you are writing a complaint to a show or publication whose stories you have enjoyed in the past, do not lose the opportunity to pay a compliment. Then, gently point out the current problem, making sure you tackle the issue, not the person you are writing to. Reread your note twice before hitting send, being sure to remove or rewrite any phrase that could have been put more nicely. Remember that anger tends to put people on the defensive whereas a friendly pointer can get a hearing and have real impact on future work.

DawnWatch will generally alert you to front page stories in major papers, or national animal media stories; perhaps two or three per week. But a major aim of DawnWatch is to encourage activists to stay in friendly contact with their local media, which DawnWatch may not cover (though we are working on changing that). So please, consider Dawnwatch a training ground, where you learn about major animal stories and get in the habit of responding. Then practice that habit in your local media. Some local papers print close to 100% of letters they receive.

Thank you, on behalf of all animals, for speaking out, using the media to amplify your voice, and thereby ensuring that that the voice of compassion is part of the public dialogue.