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comment by ChristianKl · 2023-05-07T14:46:25.506Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Many people don't enjoy receiving spam emails. That especially goes for people who receive a lot of emails like journalists. Receiving spam emails can make people develop negative associations with a topic.
I never watched a 1-hour video because someone I didn't know sent me a spam email and I would expect that many journalists would feel the same. To me, the email you wrote looks like it spent zero concern on what the receiver of the email values and only on what you want them to do.
There is a professional class of PR people who understand how to interface with journalists. If you want to send mass emails, please ask a professional in that field first.
I attempted to keep it highly concise
Your email doesn't look like that. If you would have kept it concise you wouldn't have written "I hope this finds you well".
the best way to contact journalistic outlets is via email.
That sounds to me like "the only way I can think of is X, so X is the best way".
Replies from: marc/er↑ comment by lukemarks (marc/er) · 2023-05-07T22:00:30.111Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I agree with some of this as a crticism of the idea, but not of the post. Firstly, I stated the same risk you did in the introduction of the post, hence the communication was "Here is an idea, but it has this caveat", and then the response begins with "but it has this caveat".
Next, if the 'bad outcome' scenario looks like most or all parties that receive the email ignoring it/not investigating further, then I see such an email as easily justifiable to send, as it is a low-intensity activity labour-wise with the potential to expand knowledge of x-risks posed by AI. Obviously this isn't the upper bound for the negativity of the outcome of sending an email like this, as you and I both pointed out a worse alternative, but as outlined in the post, I believe this can be accounted for via an iterative drafting process (like the one I am trying to initiate by sharing the draft above) and handling communications like this with care.
I agree with the assertion regarding consulting a PR professional (and I think this is another reason to delegate the task to a willing organization with access to resources like this).
As for the critique of the email itself, I agree that omitting that sentence improves the conciseness of the email, but that sequence of six words doesn't make the entire email contents not concise. Also, feedback like this was my primary motivation for sharing a draft.
I disagree with your final remark regarding email communication. Email is the single digital communication medium shared by almost every company and individual on the planet and is the medium most likely to be selected as an open contact method on the website of a journalist/media company. Furthermore, communication via email is highly scalable, which is a critical factor in mass communication. Sure, I cannot prove that email is undoutably the most superior form of communication for this task (and thus by definition the conjecture is subject to the criticism you posed), but I can (and hope I just did) make a case supporting my intuition. I'm not sure by what other means than my best intellectual effort and discussion with others you could want when justifying the use of a communication method. Are you looking for a formal proof?
Replies from: ChristianKl↑ comment by ChristianKl · 2023-05-08T11:24:00.283Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Email is the single digital communication medium shared by almost every company and individual on the planet and is the medium most likely to be selected as an open contact method on the website of a journalist/media company.
Channels that are selected as a central open contact method tend to be very crowded and thus not the most efficient channels.
As for the critique of the email itself, I agree that omitting that sentence improves the conciseness of the email, but that sequence of six words doesn't make the entire email contents not concise.
The person getting the email might get 2000 emails per day. That sentence will likely, get a good portion of the people who receive it to think "This person doesn't know how to write concisely, why should I read another four paragraphs from them?"
handling communications like this with care.
Generally, handling communication with care means not mass emailing busy people but writing personalized emails and thinking about what those people want to hear.
One narrative that could be interesting for a journalist could be:
The YouGov poll shows that a majority of Americans are afraid that AI causes human extinction. Alternative media like Breaking Points and Tucker covered the topic but it is underreported in mainstream media. It's important that people can inform themselves about this topic by reading respected articles from trusted sources like [your newspaper] and at the moment it seems underreported.
In the past, your newspaper did a good work at holding big tech accountable and it's important not to drop the ball. Ex-Google engineer Geoffrey Hinton recently criticized the big tech companies and charged that in their pursuit of profits, they might endanger the very existence of humanity.
One take, that nobody published till now is XYZ. Here are a few expert quotes on XYZ.
What value would this email have to a journalist? They care about getting readers, you tell them a topic that's good for getting readers. You are making a case that it fits with the other stories they write. You also reduce their work by telling them about XYZ.
Fifteen years ago, a good press release was one that a journalist could just copy-paste and put his name on. In the online world there's likely less copy-pasting of press releases then back then but he principle that you want a few paragraph that demonstrate that there's a good story that they could easily publish without doing much work likely still holds.