Rapid Response Network Update

Vol. 1, No. 5--December 4, 2004

"In our nation the people are sovereign, not the government. It is the people, not the media or the financial system or mega-corporations or the two political parties, who have the power to create change."

Governor Howard Dean

Rapid Response Network, first formed as a grassroots effort to advance the campaign of Howard Dean, acts as "first responders" to media coverage that contains factual inaccuracies or biased reporting. Since its inception, nationwide membership has grown to approximately 2,500.

Rapid Response Network in its action alerts makes a simple request: We want a debate in this country based on substance rather than form, based on truth rather than misquotes, misrepresentations and outright lies. As the media increasingly speaks with one voice, Rapid Response, at its heart, is a vehicle for insuring many voices are heard, for engaging "We the People" in our democracy. The action alerts are the product of a day's worth of discussion on our 52 yahoo groups--state coordinators talking to people in their states, in turn talking to the other state coordinators, reading newspapers, identifying issues, researching information and sharing resources. The reports we send out are a phenomenal collaboration--an American conversation.

As RR members are consumers of publications across the country, our efforts can play a critical role in insuring responsible, principled journalistic efforts, thus allowing the public a more fair hearing of progressive candidates and causes. The unique Rapid Response structure provides the muscle of national resources and organization with the effectiveness that can only be achieved by acting at a local level. State RR groups can become powerful tools for supporting local and state progressive candidates, providing a counterbalance to the organizational strength of the GOP in smaller cities across America.

RR letter writers achieve victories on a daily basis all over America. Rapid Response alerts have been picked up by Columbia Journalism Review Campaign Desk, Buzzflash, and Democrats.com, among others. In the lead up to the Iowa Caucuses, RR organized Iowa letter writers to correct a misquote, resulting in a page 1 correction in the Des Moines Register. Each day we focus large numbers of letter writers on the important issues of our time, resulting in capable fact-based letters published across America, from the tiniest hometown papers to the Washington Post and New York Times. Rapid Response letter writers have affected television coverage as well--in one instance RR letters forced a retraction of a misquote on CNN's American morning with the comment "we heard from a lot of you on this one."

Speak up. Join Rapid Response. Five minutes of your time, multiplied by all of us, yields powerful results. Just imagine the power of this network if we were 10,000 or 100,000 people. Imagine 100 Rapid Responders in every town in every state of this country. Imagine what we could do.

With your help, we can grow to numbers of 100,000 strong who, together, have the power to change the face of this country one media alert, one letter, one phone call, one person at a time.

Here's how you can help:

Join your state and the national RR group
Spread the word--tell others about Rapid Response
as a state RR coordinator, researcher or a writer

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