The Boston Globe has published an unusual multimedia, interactive editorial calling for a ban on assault weapons that includes data, animated graphics, and thumbnail bios of six recalcitrant senators—including information on how much money they’ve received from the gun lobby as well as tools to email or tweet at them.
The Globe is using the hashtag #makeitstop via its main Twitter account and its @GlobeOpinion account. Among other things, it’s been tweeting out the names of the Orlando mass-shooting victims.
The print edition comes with a four-page wraparound comprising the editorial and accompanying material.
Overall, it’s a well-executed effort, and I applaud editorial-page editor Ellen Clegg and her staff. I like it more than the fake front page the Globe devoted to Donald Trump earlier this year, which some people confused with the paper’s actual page one.
Unfortunately, the problem with such campaigns is that even when they’re effective at making their case, they’re ineffective in changing anyone’s minds. Still, we have to try. So kudos.
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My reaction, for what it’s worth, was twofold — one about the format and the other about the content.
On the format, I thought, “Oh, this is how people nowadays are reached, this is how communication has changed — it feels very foreign to me and I am concerned about how complex and nuanced a thought can be shared through these means.” It felt very different from a piece of prose trying to persuade me by leading me through the author’s thinking.
On the content, I thought my usual thought that change will come when more basic patterns of thinking and reacting change, that we tend to work in our discussions at levels secondary to our more basic ways of dealing with the world and each other (kind of like working with the tip of the iceberg and not what lies beneath).