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Outreach Journal II: The Deadline Audience Initiative

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Posted on April 4, 2005

On July 30, 2004 Big Mouth Films' Deadline was broadcast on NBC as a special two-hour Dateline. This landmark event marked the first time a major network acquired an independent documentary, and it allowed our film to be seen by as many as 5.5 million people. This was more than any of us had dreamed, and we have worked hard to harness the power of this NBC broadcast to launch a much larger national outreach campaign.

In 2003, after finding his state's capital punishment system flawed, Governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 death row inmates to life in prison.Photo by Kirsten Johnson.

A Website That Empowers

Much of our work leading up to the broadcast hinged upon the anticipated audience response. In partnership with our MediaRights colleagues (Big Mouth Films and MediaRights are both parts of the umbrella nonprofit Arts Engine, Inc.), we created a website for the film that went live on the night of the broadcast. The site provides people who are moved by the film with tools for taking action and resources for learning more about the capital punishment system.

We created open discussion threads on the site so that visitors could share their thoughts during and after the broadcast. During the broadcast and in the immediate days that followed, we were inundated with comments both in favor and in opposition of the death penalty. I believe that the NBC broadcast enabled us to reach not just a larger but also a much more diverse audience, and this made the dialogues on the website even richer.

After the broadcast, with MediaRights' help, we were able to expand the website's content. We created a news blog that is maintained by an offsite writer, Katherine Leggett, one of the film's Assistant Editors. Her daily entries chronicle developments in the movement to reform the U.S. capital punishment system and offer new opportunities to take action.

The Deadline website features an interactive State by State Map enabling users to access information about their states' capital punishment policies and to get involved locally.

Another new site element is an interactive map of the United States. By clicking on your home state, you can access your governor's stance on the death penalty, find places where you can volunteer, learn the number of men and women who have been exonerated in your state and more.

Maintenance of our website is a constant effort for all of us, but it is a crucial element of our outreach campaign. While there are other websites featuring criminal justice information, our site functions as a filtered aggregator of these different streams of content. This way users who might not know about The Death Penalty Information Center, for example, can learn about new developments through the Deadline site.

Target States: Working Towards Repeals and Moratoriums

Once the website was up and running, we switched gears and focused our outreach efforts on states working towards repeals and moratoriums. With our partner Equal Justice USA, we identified the following states as targets: New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, Maryland, Illinois, North Carolina and Tennessee. In each of these seven states there was already some momentum in the movement for capital punishment reform. This meant that the film Deadline could really play a role in helping state activists further their agendas for change.

Working out of Big Mouth's Manhattan offices, Beth Davenport and I organized our efforts for the states of New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland. Because of the size of the campaign, we brought in Working Films to coordinate outreach in the rest of the target states.

We held two summit meetings, one in Tennessee and one in North Carolina. Robert West and Molly Ramey of Working Films, and I met with local activists from organizations such as the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killings and in North Carolina, The People of Faith Against the Death Penalty.

Gary Gaugher, an exonerated individual and a representative for Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights spoke at a Deadline screening for 400 high-school students in Chicago, IL in partnership with Cinema/Chicago. Photo by Robert Dowey.

The purpose of these meetings was to introduce activists to Deadline and to explore ways for them to integrate the film into their work. During the course of these events, we were impressed by the scope of grassroots efforts, and activists were excited to have access to a new media tool. We worked together to come up with specific strategies for incorporating the film into activist campaigns. Working Films is following up with each of the participating organizations to make sure they move forward with the rather lofty list of goals.

Profile of A Target State: New York

Last year, the death penalty was deemed unconstitutional in New York, leaving the state's capital punishment system in a state of limbo. Three sets of hearings were held in both New York City and Albany, giving the public a forum to express their opinions to assembly members.

During the time period when the hearings were taking place, we organized screenings of Deadline in New York, and we used these events as a platform to broaden the discussion to include the state's criminal justice system as a whole. Big Mouth representatives attended each of the hearings and wrote entries on our site to give site visitors a window into the democratic process.

At the first set of hearings, many of the people who spoke mentioned Former Governor George Ryan and his landmark decision. It became clear to us that the events that had unfolded in Illinois, as documented in Deadline, would be useful to those engaged in the issue in New York.

We organized a screening at the Albany Public Library on the day of the hearings and invited David Kaczinsky from New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty and representatives from the Albany Independent Film Forum to join Director Katy Chevigny in presenting the film. We also held a private screening for legislators the day before the screening. We hoped that the film would contribute to legislators' decisions by underscoring larger issues with the New York State and national capital punishment systems.

In the coming year, we will be working with the New York Civil Liberties Union to set up a screening for Brooklyn legislators and we will also screen segments of the film at Community Forums all over New York State.

What's Next: The High-School Initiative

Our outreach campaign thus far has been very active, but after organizing over seventy screenings and creating a thriving website, we still have more work to do. After doing screenings in Nashville and Chicago for high-school students, we realized that it is important for the next phase of our campaign to include a High School Initiative focused on students from low-income communities.

(from left to right) Co-Director/Director of Cinematography Kirsten Johnson, Associate Producer/Outreach Director Angela Tucker and Co-Director/Co-Producer Katy Chevigny on a shoot for Deadline.Photo by Dallas Brennan.

With Working Films and our other partners, we will organize school assemblies in our target states. We will also create a guide that will give students the tools to join local grassroots efforts or to launch their own activist campaigns. Additionally, we are going to distribute free of charge fifty-two DVDs to teachers throughout the country for use in their classrooms. Participating students will get a copy of the Student Activist Guide and be invited to write their comments on the film's website. The High School Initiative is funded by The Butler Family Foundation and the fifty-two DVDs are being donated by our distributor, Home Vision Entertainment.

While focusing on this outreach to high-schools, we will continue to maintain the website as a whole and to work in key states. In fact, we will be adding another target state to the campaign -- Florida.

It has been extremely gratifying to work on a film like Deadline and to play such a large role in integrating the film into criminal justice and capital punishment campaigns. Our partners, Equal Justice USA, Amnesty International's Campaign to End the Death Penalty and numerous others, have been instrumental in maximizing the impact of the film. They have also taught me a great deal about what it means to be truly committed to a cause.

---------------------------- If you are a teacher and want to participate in the High School Initiative, email Angela at angela@bigmouthproductions.com.

Angela Tucker is the Outreach Director for Deadline. She was also the film's Associate Producer.