Headline news again...

[David CO]

23 hours ago, desertrat77 said:

National also needs to have a complete re-look at how it communicates within our organization.   

Yes.  When dedicated scouters with decades of experience regularly roll their eyes at the communications coming out of national, how can we expect a jaded media and a cynical public to believe anything BSA says.  BSA needs to start by winning over its own volunteers.  If they can't do that, there isn't a chance of them winning over the public.

[FireStone]

On 1/9/2020 at 11:42 AM, vol_scouter said:

Do you all understand that the response that the BSA sends to the media is edited by that media?  The media often (usually) omit much of the positive in a response.

The BSA cannot compel the news media to pick up a story so getting ahead of stories or getting positive news out to the public is not something that the BSA can control.

Everyone seems to believe that positive stories and effective responses are not being made but that is simply not true. The media tells the story that it wants you to consume, not what is true or accurate.

Where are the effective responses then? As already mentioned in this thread, BSA social media and blogs are basically silent, for weeks or months at a time. Even through the official channels that the BSA controls, they're not saying anything.

And I get the whole "can't comment on pending litigation" thing, but that doesn't mean they can't comment on the absolutely falsehoods being portrayed in the media. Like the idea that they don't vet volunteers, which was mentioned in the original article I posted.

Why not do a blog post about the YPT program and outline exactly what volunteers go through when they sign up? They don't need to even mention the lawsuits, just put some info out there about what the BSA is doing right now, what YPT is, the background checks that leaders go through, etc.