I was just responding to a recent post over on Kristine’s Gunslinger blog, when I had a brainstorm. OK, for me, most brainstorms aren’t much more than a quick drizzle and a puff of breeze, but maybe this one has a little thunder in it.
Here’s the deal… a couple of posts around the Outdoors blogosphere recently have centered around improving and publicising the image of hunters to the non-hunting public.
That’s a tough one, and will require individual effort from all of us. In part it requires modeling proper behavior, and in part it means counteracting the negative stereotypes and messages that the non-hunting public receives from various sources.
Over the years I’ve done up a handful of essays on this topic (which can be read on my personal web site - just be aware that the site isn’t updated all that much these days), but it always boils down to being conscious of our actions and how they will appear to non-hunters. It’s critical to remember that our hunting priviledges are only as solid as the support we get from non-hunting voters. If we lose that support, our sport will die. Simple as that.
Nothing in the world will stop the newspapers, tv, and radio from reporting bad news. That’s important to note. But reporting bad news doesn’t necessarily reflect a bias. When a hunter shoots his buddy, or gets caught poaching, it’s gonna make news. It doesn’t mean the media is “out to get” hunters. We have enough enemies, let’s not automatically create new ones. (Yes, I know that some news organizations do have a negative bias, but certainly not all… even the San Francisco Chronicle has a couple of outdoors writers who occasionally report positively on hunting issues.)
On the other hand, a hunter who abides the law and keeps to a strict set of ethical rules isn’t likely to make news because it’s NOT news when someone does what they’re supposed to do. It should not be worthy of notice to the general public, just like nobody makes news for driving the speed limit and never having a drink before driving down the highway.
But what IS news is the unusual, the thing that is outside of the expected norm… and this is where we as outdoors bloggers can come in (and brings me back to my brainstorm). By continuing to spread the word about the positives that are worthy of note, we can possibly leverage the media in our favor. It’s notoriously fickle like that.
Hunters and fishermen have always taken pride in our history as conservationists. We like to trot this out whenever we’re talking about hunting or fishing to folks who don’t know about our sport. This is all well and good, but for the most part our references are to historical stuff… the establishment of hunting laws and limits, or the founding of organizations like Ducks Unlimited or the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. These things are pretty intangible to the general audience, because they are too big…too vague.
But outdoorsmen (and women) are quite involved on much smaller, grassroots levels too. These are the efforts that people can relate to; local projects that have a direct, current impact. In a recent post I wrote about Kids and Clays, and another one on Hunting Down Cancer. These are both fairly small projects that don’t have a lot of budget for advertising, and I feel like it’s part of my job as both a hunter and a journalist/blogger to get the word out about these, and other small but positive efforts in our community.
So the point of my brainstorm was to suggest that every outdoor blogger find at least one local, grassroots program to publicise on your blog. Hunters for the Hungry or local food banks are good ones. Children’s and women’s programs are good too. Habitat projects and conservation efforts are excellent things to spotlight, since they often can’t spend the time or money to spotlight themselves.
Get the word out in the community first, then try to spread it to the media… on a local level first, then out from there if you can. We’ve all experienced the power of the Internet on so many levels from building communities to effecting national or even global political change. Let’s take the time and effort to leverage that power now.
I absolutely adore this idea. I think it could do so much good, both for the bloggers who write about the organizations and the organizations itself.
It’s also a perfect example of what the Outdoor Bloggers Summit is trying to acccomplish. By linking bloggers together and forming relationships, we can create a larger voice for these kinds of information.
Great idea Phillip. That was a terrific brainstorm.