Forum Post: OWS needs a face and voice that won't scare or piss off regular people

As it stands right now it's often fairly difficult for OWS to keep a healthy, nonthreatening presence in the media, and I feel like it's costing them a great deal in terms of public opinion and respect. It's already been stated here several times that the mainstream media has a nasty habit of going straight for the sensation, often at the expense of the truth. In our case, this means interviewing the most controversial people they can find. When you watch the footage of protests and the only people you see are idiots, anarchists, communists, tinfoil hat people, or high off their asses you're not going to think much of what you see and you're not going to be particularly happy with the movement in general. This is what's hurting us with ordinary Americans; they don't see that many of us that they can empathize with.

We can change that if we stand up and take control of the image we present to the world and the image of us the media presents to the world. I already suggested creating a PR workgroup composed almost completely of moderates and responsible for giving interviews, going on talk shows, etc. to promote us. The idea would be for OWS to shell out a couple of hundred bucks per member for a suit, a shave, and a haircut, and to require the members of the group to abstain from drugs and heavy drinking while involved. Essentially, if the face of the movement is clean, sober, articulate, clean-cut, and ideally comprised of people who were laid off of blue-collar jobs then it would be far easier for us to get support. If people felt it necessary to put checks on the PR workgroup it would always be possible to staff it on a rotating basis.