This article at Wired magazine provides a lot of stats on the rise in homeschooling this year, especially in Black families. The freedom to cultivate the curriculum was an appeal. As people stretch into their new normals and values after enduring the shutdown, the complexities of public schools, unions, charter schools, homeschooling, and the community around those options may be at the forefront of discussions.
And I thought the Common Core debate was too complex for me to follow! Now is your time, homeschooling and charter school peeps, to pitch the media about what you got going on. Your pitch won’t just be a feature of your business or initiative. It will be informing the reporter, editor or producer about the problem you see in a certain area, and how your business or initiative addresses that. If you don’t have a business but are trying to change policy, same thing.
Have you wondered why these topics weren’t covered before? Were you silently seething at the media for not covering these things? Or covering them in a way that reflected poorly in the area you know so well, and could use some change? Here’s the thing: you can make that change. By pitching the media.
Yes, it’s true! The media learns from you! Reporters are trained to hear topics that resonate with people; that will make a difference in their lives; or that their readers don’t know much about. You can inform the media about this. Even if you think a reporter knows about it already. They might not. Or, they may have heard about it, but don’t know how to approach it from a different angle - because they don’t know the different angle to come at it from.
You can pitch the ideas you wish the media would write about! Need help? Use Tin Shingle’s Pitch Whispering benefit that comes with your membership.