Media coverage… we have been talking to a lot of media outlets across the country and the support and interest has been fantastic. Our goal is to have a national online partner, a national foot print of newspapers and a few photography magazines covering the story, one in Canada and one in the USA.
So far the Sun Media newspapers and the Winnipeg Free Press will be covering the expedition with our articles. I have also talked to some of the community newspapers around where we all live and the response to my request to interview us about our expedition is overwhelmingly positive.
We have also spoken to MSN Canada and they like the idea of us blogging daily from the arctic. They also talked to me about writing both articles on the effects of climate change as well as some eco-tourism articles for them upon our return. The plan with MSN would be to have them publish blogs daily online and allow people to interact with us in real time.
Social media will also play a role in spreading the message about the expedition and allow us also to communicate with people that are intereted about what its like in the arctic circle. The issue now is to have a satellite phone and model with a data plan... but there are a few companies that can supply us those... so Roadpost... I will be calling. ;-)
As for photography magazines, not many have stepped forward yet. Photo technique magazine out of the U.S. has expressed an interest in doing something, but no Canadian photo magazines have stepped forward to say they want to be “the” Canadian magazine to cover us… My money is on Outdoor Photography Canada as both Ethan and John write columns for them already. That and Roy, the Editor-In-Chief, has at least asked me to have a conversation about the expedition already. :-)
The media partners seem to be the easy part… this is an exceptional news worthy program that would garner great readership and exposure for all of our media partners.
The hard part is the sponsorship dollars… but “hard” may be the wrong word... lets call it "more challenging". We have contacted numerous companies with our media kit to sponsor the expedition and donate to the cause… it will just take a few weeks now to start to hear back from the initial media kit presentations. Our goal is to raise a minimum of $50,000 and acquire “in-kind” sponsorship to offset our own costs (flights, food, arctic gear etc)
I am sure there will be a lot more companies that decline to participate than will be willing to participate, but that is expected. If it was easy, everyone would attempt this… LOL
Oh well, onward and upward…
Stay tuned... a few exciting conversations are going to be taking place in the next week. We have a meeting at the WWF Canada offices to meet everyone and there are a few very high profile sponsors that have reached out to get more details before they render their decision.
Oh, I almost forgot. Watch CBC this Sunday, April 8th at 7pm. The Nature of Things is on at a special time. Director Adam Ravetch has made a fantastic program following a sub population of bears from ice out, through the summer. Its an increadable program on how a young bear struggles to change centuries of habit in order to survive. To read about this program please visit, http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episode/polar-bears.html
You can also check out the web pages for our trip north here. www.photographers-lounge.com
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