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The Activist's Media Handbook: Lessons from Fifty Years as a Progressive Agitator
Activist and public relations thought leader David Fenton shares lessons on how to organize successful media campaigns, cultivated from more than half a century working within some of history’s most impactful social movements.
In an extraordinary career David Fenton has learned first-hand what to do—and not to do—to propel progressive causes into the public eye and create real, impactful, lasting change.
A visionary activist, Fenton has been the driving force behind some of the most important and history-making campaigns of the last 50 years, from the No-Nukes concerts with Bruce Springsteen in 1979, to the campaigns to free Nelson Mandela and end apartheid in the late 1980s, exposing the dangers of toxic chemicals in our food, the long battle to legalize marijuana and end racist drug laws, the misinformation in Washington during the Bush era in the 2000s, and recent campaigns that successfully banned fracking in New York and alerted the public to the climate crisis, including the environmental impact of Bitcoin.
Reflecting on his life, with tales of living in a commune, photographing riots and rock stars, working at Rolling Ston e and High Times magazines rabble-rousing with Abbie Hoffman, and collaborating with presidents and celebrities, David tells the fascinating story of how he developed the strategies and tactics that have made him a successful media agitator. David then shows how these tools can be used by anyone to advance their cause.
Part rollercoaster memoir, part practical guide, The Activist's Media Handbook provides an essential toolkit for today’s activists for organizing to how to tell your story, captivate audiences, and inspire them to join the cause.
In an extraordinary career David Fenton has learned first-hand what to do—and not to do—to propel progressive causes into the public eye and create real, impactful, lasting change.
A visionary activist, Fenton has been the driving force behind some of the most important and history-making campaigns of the last 50 years, from the No-Nukes concerts with Bruce Springsteen in 1979, to the campaigns to free Nelson Mandela and end apartheid in the late 1980s, exposing the dangers of toxic chemicals in our food, the long battle to legalize marijuana and end racist drug laws, the misinformation in Washington during the Bush era in the 2000s, and recent campaigns that successfully banned fracking in New York and alerted the public to the climate crisis, including the environmental impact of Bitcoin.
Reflecting on his life, with tales of living in a commune, photographing riots and rock stars, working at Rolling Ston e and High Times magazines rabble-rousing with Abbie Hoffman, and collaborating with presidents and celebrities, David tells the fascinating story of how he developed the strategies and tactics that have made him a successful media agitator. David then shows how these tools can be used by anyone to advance their cause.
Part rollercoaster memoir, part practical guide, The Activist's Media Handbook provides an essential toolkit for today’s activists for organizing to how to tell your story, captivate audiences, and inspire them to join the cause.
248 pages, Hardcover
Published November 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 30, 2024
In this book, David Fenton shares a lifetime of experience on how to message effectively for political and activist campaigns. The author is brutally candid about his own failures, both career and personal—this lack of pretentiousness makes his advice on promoting causes more fully credible. It is indeed a handbook for successful media campaigns that is worth reading, and more importantly, implementing.
Fenton notes how right wing media outlets and think tanks have attacked him, using their usual bugaboos referring to socialism or radicalism and his association with activists outside the mainstream. You likely will sense that what Fenton says is common sense—although clearly a progressive, he also offers scathing criticisms of some of his fellow travelers on the left (especially of their actions that hurt their causes).
Throughout the book, Fenton promotes and follows the advice of cognitive linguist George Lakoff of the FrameLab project as an authority for effective messaging techniques. Lakoff has pointed out that the Right Wing propaganda establishment has hacked into the conservative brain—blinding Trump's followers to the reality that he has nothing you value: no self-control, no loyalty, no tolerance for ambiguity or dissent, no expertise, and no respect for others' autonomy. You wouldn’t want Trump's gaudy lifestyle, trashy friends, or his bevy of supplicating vipers. To counter that, Lakoff advises to message Double Trump Haters and Reluctant Democrats about the MAGA agenda and then convince them that Trump will actually execute this agenda. Dr. Lakoff also noted that “There are certain things that strict fathers cannot be: A Loser, Corrupt, and especially not a Betrayer of Trust.” Exposing these qualities in Trump is an almost surefire way to turn off those with right-leaning brains or the many biconceptuals who have strict father tendencies. To win over those with more progressive brains, Lakoff advises to emphasize Trump’s corruption and show how he has already betrayed the people who buy into his scams-using his power to fleece you to pay off himself, his cronies, and his billionaire donors is all he cares about. Fenton is right to present Lakoff as a skilled and effective mentor for anyone who is serious about communicating their causes. Use this approach for any cause or candidate.
It's essential to take a long term perspective, and stay focused on the strategic task of advancing our common humanity—regardless of the current circumstances (whether favorable or unfavorable). As Conservative Yuval Levin has said in Yascha Mounk's Persuasion publication, there are new things they could say to new voters, and figure out how to make new friends and keep the old. In this book David Fenton shows the way-read it and you will know what to do. Now, let's get to work.
Fenton notes how right wing media outlets and think tanks have attacked him, using their usual bugaboos referring to socialism or radicalism and his association with activists outside the mainstream. You likely will sense that what Fenton says is common sense—although clearly a progressive, he also offers scathing criticisms of some of his fellow travelers on the left (especially of their actions that hurt their causes).
Throughout the book, Fenton promotes and follows the advice of cognitive linguist George Lakoff of the FrameLab project as an authority for effective messaging techniques. Lakoff has pointed out that the Right Wing propaganda establishment has hacked into the conservative brain—blinding Trump's followers to the reality that he has nothing you value: no self-control, no loyalty, no tolerance for ambiguity or dissent, no expertise, and no respect for others' autonomy. You wouldn’t want Trump's gaudy lifestyle, trashy friends, or his bevy of supplicating vipers. To counter that, Lakoff advises to message Double Trump Haters and Reluctant Democrats about the MAGA agenda and then convince them that Trump will actually execute this agenda. Dr. Lakoff also noted that “There are certain things that strict fathers cannot be: A Loser, Corrupt, and especially not a Betrayer of Trust.” Exposing these qualities in Trump is an almost surefire way to turn off those with right-leaning brains or the many biconceptuals who have strict father tendencies. To win over those with more progressive brains, Lakoff advises to emphasize Trump’s corruption and show how he has already betrayed the people who buy into his scams-using his power to fleece you to pay off himself, his cronies, and his billionaire donors is all he cares about. Fenton is right to present Lakoff as a skilled and effective mentor for anyone who is serious about communicating their causes. Use this approach for any cause or candidate.
It's essential to take a long term perspective, and stay focused on the strategic task of advancing our common humanity—regardless of the current circumstances (whether favorable or unfavorable). As Conservative Yuval Levin has said in Yascha Mounk's Persuasion publication, there are new things they could say to new voters, and figure out how to make new friends and keep the old. In this book David Fenton shows the way-read it and you will know what to do. Now, let's get to work.
December 11, 2022
Highly useful for any progressive interested in how to make real change. The right has learned how to use media and messaging to manipulate and disinform the public on a variety of issues. The left meanwhile suffers from the enlightenment fallacy believing that facts will speak for themselves, refusing to play the game of marketing and PR. It’s time intellectuals get over themselves and do what works.
Its written in a highly engaging conversational manner & covers a ton of ground in activist work, was generally interesting to read all of it in addition to the benefit of activist takeaways.
Its written in a highly engaging conversational manner & covers a ton of ground in activist work, was generally interesting to read all of it in addition to the benefit of activist takeaways.
November 28, 2022
David Fenton and his wife, according to Wikipedia, “divide their time between New York and Berkeley.” It is a true measure of our clout in the thought leader world that neither of these cities needs to designate thOur states, let alone our countries. We are “mononymous,” like Aristotle or Cher.
Fenton started “hanging out with the radical kids… marijuana and rock and roll…demonstrating against the (Vietnam) war” in his late 1960s “75 per cent Black and Puerto Rican” high school; “arousing my senses, sexuality, and creativity in new ways.” He and his fellow students in the Bronx banished their “dress code” “by word of mouth” by all “showing up in blue jeans” one day; the first of many civil disobedience actions that made him more and more confident to question authority, preferably in large groups with a lot of like-minded others willing to take action.
He also “subscribed to…intellectual new left magazines,” joined photography club, and “we started the New York High School Free Press,” out of the Student Union and anti-draft coalition. The parent publisher, NY Free Press, and other underground and formal adult magazines began picking up his “photographs of riots and demonstrations around New York,” helping him to make “serious money from photography” for them and the Liberation News Service of the “hundreds of hippie, counter-cultural, antiwar underground newspapers” that had sprung up “across the country.”
He latched up with Abbie Hoffman and the Youth International Party Yippies (see Judy Gumbo, Yippie Girl, Exploits in Protest and Defeating the FBI), impressed with how “creatively the defendants” of the Chicago Seven and their previous protest “mythmaking,” especially on television and talk show news, proved that “image” about “yourself or your organization, is as important to communicating your message as what you actually do.” Read that sentence again, because it is the essence of HIS message. Officer Chauvin’s knee on George Floyd’s neck viscerally encapsulated Black Lives Matter, and the broadly misunderstood slogan “Defund the Police” kicked a hole in it.
An Ann Arbor commune, riots, rock stars and tear gas followed, including in the Berkeley Barb during a time of police, corporate and secret repression under Nixon, Reagan and the following Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Koch Brothers/DT/Bannon/Giuliani/ domination. I don’t agree with all his stories about people and events, details and conclusions; but what he’s learned on the way to International Climate Action and confronting “The Conservative Media’s Alternative Reality” is stunning.
Just A FEW bits/bytes: “For decades, I have watched crazy dogmatism hurt the Left,” (SO TRUE!) “People learn from engaging characters and moral stories,” (people we can relate to and empathize with) “Public relations also affects the legal system and the courts” (grassroots, not “trickle down”) and “To change policy, you have to change public opinion.” Available at Eastwind and other independent bookstores. Find this book, study it and USE his PR principles in your next endeavor.
Fenton started “hanging out with the radical kids… marijuana and rock and roll…demonstrating against the (Vietnam) war” in his late 1960s “75 per cent Black and Puerto Rican” high school; “arousing my senses, sexuality, and creativity in new ways.” He and his fellow students in the Bronx banished their “dress code” “by word of mouth” by all “showing up in blue jeans” one day; the first of many civil disobedience actions that made him more and more confident to question authority, preferably in large groups with a lot of like-minded others willing to take action.
He also “subscribed to…intellectual new left magazines,” joined photography club, and “we started the New York High School Free Press,” out of the Student Union and anti-draft coalition. The parent publisher, NY Free Press, and other underground and formal adult magazines began picking up his “photographs of riots and demonstrations around New York,” helping him to make “serious money from photography” for them and the Liberation News Service of the “hundreds of hippie, counter-cultural, antiwar underground newspapers” that had sprung up “across the country.”
He latched up with Abbie Hoffman and the Youth International Party Yippies (see Judy Gumbo, Yippie Girl, Exploits in Protest and Defeating the FBI), impressed with how “creatively the defendants” of the Chicago Seven and their previous protest “mythmaking,” especially on television and talk show news, proved that “image” about “yourself or your organization, is as important to communicating your message as what you actually do.” Read that sentence again, because it is the essence of HIS message. Officer Chauvin’s knee on George Floyd’s neck viscerally encapsulated Black Lives Matter, and the broadly misunderstood slogan “Defund the Police” kicked a hole in it.
An Ann Arbor commune, riots, rock stars and tear gas followed, including in the Berkeley Barb during a time of police, corporate and secret repression under Nixon, Reagan and the following Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Koch Brothers/DT/Bannon/Giuliani/ domination. I don’t agree with all his stories about people and events, details and conclusions; but what he’s learned on the way to International Climate Action and confronting “The Conservative Media’s Alternative Reality” is stunning.
Just A FEW bits/bytes: “For decades, I have watched crazy dogmatism hurt the Left,” (SO TRUE!) “People learn from engaging characters and moral stories,” (people we can relate to and empathize with) “Public relations also affects the legal system and the courts” (grassroots, not “trickle down”) and “To change policy, you have to change public opinion.” Available at Eastwind and other independent bookstores. Find this book, study it and USE his PR principles in your next endeavor.
May 19, 2023
Useful ideas on how to do better activism.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews