About MAP
Outreach and Education
MAP sees four aspects to its educational mission. First, MAP keeps other non-profits and advocacy groups informed of important issues in communications policy. As a result of these activities, MAP frequently takes a lead role in building broad-based coalitions to advocate for specific issues. Second, MAP educates the public and the press, explaining how complex policy decisions or media mergers have a real and profound affect on the public's First Amendment right to speak and hear information from a diversity of sources. Third, apart from MAP's advocacy mission, MAP seeks to educate policy analysts and decision makers on the "big picture" issues affecting MAP's non-profit clients and the public. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, MAP works to recruit and train the next generation of public advocates through its internship program.
MAP acts as a de facto "general counsel" to the advocacy and non-profit community on communications issues. MAP closely monitors developments in communications policy, and alerts organizations when something relevant to an organization's core mission surfaces on the regulatory horizon. For example, MAP has alerted, and then represented, civil rights groups on equal opportunity issues, and civil society and voter advocacy groups on political advertising and coverage of political debates and elections.
Because of MAP's role as an advocate for many clients with similar interests, and MAP's "brand recognition" within the non-profit community, MAP has been able to build coalitions around important policy issues or work well with existing coalitions, providing legal expertise and educational materials for other organizations to use and share with their members. For example, MAP helped create a diverse coalition of grass-roots organizations and Washington-based advocacy groups in support of low power FM radio, and continues to play a partnership role with organizations enabling communities to use this new service.
MAP also educates the press and the public. MAP staff write op-ed pieces, articles and attend conferences to explain complex issues in communications policy and how they affect the public's First Amendment rights. MAP staff make presentations to newspaper editorial boards and maintain close relations with reporters covering the communications "beat" for national newspapers and the trade press.
MAP also has well established relations with decision makers and policy analysts at the FCC, in the executive branch, and in Congress. MAP staff meet regularly with such people to educate them on "big picture" issues and concerns apart from any specific advocacy of the moment.
Finally, MAP seeks to recruit and train the next generation of public advocates. MAP has an internship program, providing one student with the opportunity to work on a full time basis with MAP for a semester or a summer. MAP takes care to provide its interns with a full teaching experience, taking interns to important meetings and involving them in drafting key documents. MAP believes this excites students with the prospect of public advocacy, as well as providing much needed training and skills. Although MAP usually employs law student interns, MAP has also had engineering students or related disciplines as interns.
In addition to the internship program, MAP works closely with the Georgetown Law School Institute for Public Representation — a clinic for students at Georgetown Law School. MAP attorneys provide projects for the students, as well as providing advice and critiquing student work product. Ultimately, many IPR student projects, with MAP assistance, are filed at the FCC or with the courts. MAP also hopes to build a similar relationship with the new student clinics.
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