Honestly, I think this is all about finding journalists who you trust. The Vox lot, for instance, you know they’re not going to write a “ha ha look at the weirdos who want you to donate money to stop humans going extinct” piece, even if they don’t agree with the specific position you’re supporting.
“How to frame it” comes down to the same thing. In the end, assuming that you give interviews to journalists, the journalists will be the ones framing it, so choose journalists you trust and feel you can speak freely to. I know that’s kind of unhelpful advice—“be good at choosing people you trust”—but it’s really important.
That said. There are some general tips if you’re, say, writing research papers (and press releases for those research papers). One of them is including a nice clear list at the top of things that your paper doesn’t say: if your paper finds a correlation between doing crosswords and brain health, for instance, it’s worth saying “this does not mean that crosswords prevent alzheimer’s” at the top. That’s been shown (Chris Chambers at Cardiff did some great research) to avoid misunderstandings without reducing press coverage. So I guess that could be relevant. With longtermist ideas, say, you could say prominently “this doesn’t mean we need to dedicate all of our charity resources to preventing X-risk” or whatever. (Assuming you do think that.)
My only advice for talking to different demographics/political biases is to signal that you are on the side of the reader. If you’re trying to convince a right-wing person of a stereotypically left-wing point, or vice versa, it’s worth starting out with some “I come in peace” stuff about how yes, the things right-wing people worry about are OK to worry about, etc. (Scott Alexander is really good at this.) That’s obviously more relevant if you’re writing the piece yourself, but i guess if you’re talking to journalists, you can aim to do something similar.
Honestly, I think this is all about finding journalists who you trust. The Vox lot, for instance, you know they’re not going to write a “ha ha look at the weirdos who want you to donate money to stop humans going extinct” piece, even if they don’t agree with the specific position you’re supporting.
“How to frame it” comes down to the same thing. In the end, assuming that you give interviews to journalists, the journalists will be the ones framing it, so choose journalists you trust and feel you can speak freely to. I know that’s kind of unhelpful advice—“be good at choosing people you trust”—but it’s really important.
That said. There are some general tips if you’re, say, writing research papers (and press releases for those research papers). One of them is including a nice clear list at the top of things that your paper doesn’t say: if your paper finds a correlation between doing crosswords and brain health, for instance, it’s worth saying “this does not mean that crosswords prevent alzheimer’s” at the top. That’s been shown (Chris Chambers at Cardiff did some great research) to avoid misunderstandings without reducing press coverage. So I guess that could be relevant. With longtermist ideas, say, you could say prominently “this doesn’t mean we need to dedicate all of our charity resources to preventing X-risk” or whatever. (Assuming you do think that.)
My only advice for talking to different demographics/political biases is to signal that you are on the side of the reader. If you’re trying to convince a right-wing person of a stereotypically left-wing point, or vice versa, it’s worth starting out with some “I come in peace” stuff about how yes, the things right-wing people worry about are OK to worry about, etc. (Scott Alexander is really good at this.) That’s obviously more relevant if you’re writing the piece yourself, but i guess if you’re talking to journalists, you can aim to do something similar.
Is any of that helpful?