Open Letter to Statewide API Census Network Partners

By: Christen Marquez - APALC Statewide API Media Coordinator Census 2010

As Statewide Media Coordinator I am working with six regional organizations to coordinate our media outreach efforts. Asian Law Caucus in the Bay Area, Fresno Center for New Americans in the Central Valley, Asian Law Alliance in the South Bay, The Asian Pacific Policy and Planning council in Los Angeles, The Orange County Asian Pacific Islander Community Alliance in Orange County, and The Union of Pan Asian Communities in San Diego.

This document is meant to outline our goals and help define my role in this work with these six partners.






LIST OF OUR TARGETED ETHNIC COMMUNITIES
Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Lao, South Asian, Tongan, Native Hawaiian, Samoan, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chamorro, Japanese

STATEWIDE PARTNER ROLES
As statewide partners your role in our Asian Pacific Islander Census Network is to advise me of any Census 2010 related media efforts your organization and local partner organizations are planning or have already been involved with.

You should also be working to develop connections with media and community groups that represent ethnic populations that you may not regularly service through your organizational work. For example their may be a large Chinese population you service

MY ROLE AS MEDIA COORDINATOR

My role as statewide media coordinator is to make sure that we using our resources as efficiently as possible since we have such a small and critical window of time to disseminate effective and culturally appropriate census messages to our diverse API community.

I want the statewide media outreach plan to be a collaborative creation between myself and your orgs. You are the experts in communities you serve. Many of you are already doing great media work, for you this relationship should be very easy. All you have to do is make sure I know about the media attention your census outreach work is receiving.

I will also be suggesting media outlets and communities in your area to reach out to.

I am also available to provide materials to assist your orgs with media work which your organizations or partner organizations may not be experienced with. However this support will be limited to providing materials and advice on larger media issues such as how to approach the media or convene a press conference. I will not be available to write press releases, advisories, ect. because I am working on three Statewide Asian Pacific Islander Census Projects, which I have detailed below.

STATEWIDE PARTNER MEDIA DELIVERABLES

Each Statewide partner is responsible for contributing the following for the completion of their media work:

Before January 20th:

1. Each statewide partner must ID and secure at least three spokespeople.

2. Secure commitments from a minimum of five AAPI media outlets to regularly cover census related issues. These media outlets must be unique from those commitments obtained by other network partners.  Please consult with me about which media outlets you are working with so we can ensure there is no major overlap.

On Going

1. Any press clippings, media hits, letters to the editor, press conferences hosted or participated in, blog entries, radio and TV coverage ect. Anything media related please send to me. (After the launch of our website in January/February you will be able to put these materials directly onto our interactive media clearing house website)

STATEWIDE MEDIA PROJECTS IN PROGRESS

Production of six PSA's - We are producing and doing media placement for six in-language PSA's. (Khmer, Lao, Thai, Hindi, Samoan, Tongan). I would appreciate any leads on outlets for these communities.

Interactive Clearing House Website - In late January or early February we plan to launch a website that will make it easy for all our regional partners to update their media coverage, share in-language resources, and publicize upcoming events.

Community Produced PSA contest - From February to April we will be having an online census 2010 PSA contest. There will be small prizes for PSA's awarded in three catagories. There will be a screening event held at a theater in Los Angeles to celebrate the community work and announce the winners. We encourage any groups working with youth to have them participate in this as an opportunity for both education and outreach.