Case Studies
Ejecting David Duke from Twitter and Pressuring the Platform to Ban White Supremacists
As Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and his executive team continued to stall on a platform-wide ban of white supremacists, Balestra Media created a communications strategy for Change the Terms on proactive and rapid response planning aimed at spurring the platform to action. Throughout the spring and summer, we offered new, virtual opportunities for top-tier media outlets to highlight the need for CTT’s model policies to disrupt white supremacy online.
Our rapid response efforts ensured that Twitter was not able to get major media coverage for positive developments without a critique from Change the Terms on why full adoption of the coalition’s model terms is needed to combat hate and racialized disinformation. The removal of David Duke from Twitter was a proud moment for Change the Terms, gained through years of earned media pressure and outreach by coalition members.
Exposing Facebook Event Pages As Fatal Design Defect Ignored for Years
Following the murder of two people in Kenosha after a militia’s Facebook event page urged people to come to the area armed, Mark Zuckerberg called Facebook’s failed moderation of the event page an “oversight.” Balestra Media consulted on a Change the Terms open letter with a list of urgently needed steps the platform must take to find and remove any event pages being used to plot and incite violence. Balestra Media placed an exclusive story on the letter with The Verge, who exclusively reported that Facebook took no meaningful action after the Kenosha Guard page was flagged 455 times for the platform by users. The resulting story put pressure on Facebook to respond on the record and formally acknowledge the coalition's recommendations.
Working with partner organization Muslim Advocates, Balestra Media assisted with three major pieces about the organization's repeated warnings to Facebook executives about the dangers of violent event pages, as Facebook failed to act.
PRESSURING BIG TECH TO FIGHT ONLINE HATE WITH THE CHANGE THE TERMS COALITION
In October 2018, 55 civil rights groups joined together to form the first coalition challenging Big Tech’s policies to reduce hateful activity on their platforms. Six months later, Change the Terms hired Balestra Media to help them amplify the pressure on technology companies to urgently take action to protect public safety from extremists spreading hate, organizing violence, recruiting new members and fundraising for weapons online.
Within the first few months, Balestra established coalition members as the go-to experts on curbing online hate, secured high-profile media coverage critiquing new platform policies and practices and put the spotlight on Big Tech to follow through on the responsibility to protect users, especially immigrants, religious minorities and people of color. Balestra Media helped the coalition garner mainstream TV hits on CNN, NBC, and Fox News; major tech outlet mentions in Axios, Wired, Gizmodo, and CNET; and stories in important outlets read by policymakers such as The Hill and ThinkProgress.
VISUALIZING AN END TO YOUTH INCARCERATION WITH THE YOUTH FIRST INITIATIVE
Youth leaders campaigning to end youth incarceration looked to Balestra Media to create a more visual and interactive website and resource guide to educate supporters and help elected officials take action to protect and support young people. Balestra created NoKidsinPrison.org, a visually-rich website that showcased the organization’s short documentaries about youth incarceration and embedded a redesigned interactive map with deep data sets that enables sophisticated social media sharing capabilities.
Balestra integrated new features including an opportunity to watch short films, new ways to explore and share interactive maps and opportunities to take action. Young people directly impacted by the dysfunctional juvenile justice system are using the resources on the website in successful campaigns making lasting change across the country.
SHOWING LOVE AND RESILIENCE IN RESPONSE TO WHITE SUPREMACIST VIOLENCE WITH SOLIDARITY CHARLOTTESVILLE
Ahead of the Unite the Right rally, where white supremacists descended upon Charlottesville, VA with messages of hate, local clergy, residents and activists asked Balestra Media to help them prepare as a community for threats, violence and a media frenzy. Balestra worked with local clergy, activists and residents to develop messages of love and resilience and practice using them in mock media interviews.
Balestra produced over a dozen guiding documents for reporters covering the weekend's events, staffed dozens of interviews with local activists and faith leaders and described the situation live on MSNBC. Hundreds of local and national top-tier media outlets including Think Progress, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Vox, ABC News, Huffington Post and USA Today covered the Charlottesville residents who showed up to challenge the spectre of white supremacy with resilience, love and a vision for a future free from hate.
SUPPORTING TRANS ACTIVIST CHELSEA MANNING THROUGH HER RELEASE FROM PRISON
After President Obama announced the commutation of Chelsea Manning’s prison sentence, Balestra Media had three months to set Chelsea’s post-release media plan in motion. Working directly with Chelsea, her legal teams, her documentary team, her supporters, and the media eager to learn more about her experience and perspective, Balestra's founder Christina DiPasquale designed and executed a long-term strategic communications plan that would enable Chelsea to more fully express herself in her first year as a free woman, following her presidential commutation.
In addition to her long-term work with the media on Chelsea’s behalf since 2014, Christina negotiated three critical exclusives: A comprehensive long-form piece on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, with photography by the famed Inez and Vinoodh; a forward-looking, center-of-book piece in Vogue’s renowned September Issue, with portraits by the legendary Annie Leibovitz; and a TV exclusive with ABC News’ Juju Chang, which was covered in extensive promos by ABC radio affiliates and on the Times Square Jumbotron.
FIGHTING THE MUSLIM BAN WITH PROFILES OF REAL REFUGEE EXPERIENCES WITH THE INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE
When the Trump administration moved to indefinitely ban the arrival of Syrian refugees and suspend the United States’ entire resettlement program, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) added Balestra Media to their communications team. Balestra worked with the IRC to prepare directly-impacted refugee families to speak to journalists and negotiated media exclusives on behalf of refugees in communities hit hardest by the new policies.
Balestra worked with resettlement offices in six cities to develop new systems to identify refugees for media interviews, prepared refugee families to share their stories and worked with journalists to make the public aware of how refugees, resettlement agencies and communities were working together to oppose the ban. The IRC and refugee families helped shape the public’s understanding of the ban’s consequences through hundreds of media appearances including on CNN, Real Time with Bill Maher, a Teen Vogue profile, and a New York Times op-ed.
ELEVATING THE NEED FOR DIVERSITY THROUGH ENTERTAINMENT AWARDS SEASON WITH MULTI-ETHNIC MEDIA COALITION
As Hollywood continued to ignore the contributions of creatives of color in 2017, the National Hispanic Media Coalition brought on Balestra Media to draw attention to the lack of recognition of diverse talent during awards season. Balestra changed the media narrative from one that praised Hollywood for their recent diversity efforts to one that examined the effect of underrepresentation and misrepresentation of Latinos, Asian-Americans and Native Americans in film.
The most widely-read entertainment reporters covered this topic in USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, The Wrap and The Washington Post. Balestra Media worked closely with the Los Angeles Times on a Sunday print piece that slammed the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for its lack of diversity and suggested 100 extraordinary women creatives and creatives of color for inclusion. Balestra provided names of dozens of Latino creatives, nine of whom were recommended in the piece and three of whom were accepted into various branches of the Academy.
CONNECTING THE CRISIS IN THE CONGO TO FINANCIAL CORRUPTION WITH PRODUCER AND ACTRESS ROBIN WRIGHT
Following the release of The Panama Papers, which exposed the connection between corruption and the conflict in the Congo, the #StandWithCongo campaign hired Balestra Media to prepare their team to highlight the continued problems in the Congo and their roots in rampant financial abuses. Balestra ran communications for a Tribeca screening of the documentary “When Elephants Fight,”produced by actress and activist Robin Wright, and coordinated her New York City media tour.
Balestra arranged a full morning newsroom meeting at The Guardian with Wright and the #StandWithCongo team, a radio interview at WNYC, and video interviews for Huffington Post Live and Mic, drawing over 70,000 viewers via live-stream and kicking off the campaign's 50-state college campus tour.
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EXPANDING LOCAL CONTROL OVER POLICE SURVEILLANCE DECISIONS WITH THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
When over a dozen cities across the US were poised to pass local legislation to require future police surveillance decisions to be approved in a transparent legislative process, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) hired Balestra Media to launch the Community Control Over Police Surveillance campaign. The Balestra team created a digital campaign to visually represent the harms of this technology on communities of color and landed high-profile coverage of the campaign launch.
A press call with individuals directly impacted by police surveillance was covered by the Associated Press, Reuters and 40 other outlets, including podcasts, national radio and local radio serving communities of color.
STANDING UP FOR LATINOS IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY WITH THE NATIONAL HISPANIC MEDIA COALITION
When the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) wanted major networks to make new commitments to hire Latinos in front of and behind the camera, they called upon Balestra Media to develop a year-long communications campaign. Balestra put a spotlight on the lack of diversity at TV networks and pushed for action from network executives. The campaign helped attract new candidates to the Latino TV Writers Program run by NHMC, and celebrated Latinos in entertainment at the NHMC-hosted Impact Awards Gala during Oscar season.
Hundreds of outlets covered NHMC’s efforts including the Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Hollywood Reporter, and PBS Newshour.
PROMOTING AFFORDABLE COMMUNICATIONS ACCESS WITH THE NATIONAL HISPANIC MEDIA COALITION
The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) hired Balestra Media to increase the profile of their work advocating for open and accessible communication policies. Balestra designed and executed a communications strategy that put pressure on the Federal Communications Commission to review policies to benefit Latinos and on telecommunications companies to extend their participation in programs that allow lower-income households to stay online.
NHMC’s work was cited by dozens of the country's most widely-read news outlets including USA Today, The Atlantic, and the Los Angeles Times, ensuring that top decision-makers understood the necessity of policies and practices that enable diverse communities to remain connected online.