Unschooling in the Media

I wrote this to my local unschooling group, and decided to share here,
too. There were lots of great (often contradictory) perspectives. This
was mine:
 I think that, like we understand the connections that happen in
 unschooling (how a child can gain an understanding and interest in
 something because they saw it elsewhere), this may happen with media
 coverage of unschooling as well. And how many parents may have seeds
 planted because of the exposure? How many moms of 4-yr-olds who are
 unsure of kindergarden may watch the show and realize they have some
 other options? Or how many pregnant moms consuming parenting books
 but never thought to think of the school aspect yet and now is
 opened up to some amazing and provocative ideas and challenges? We
 will never know. I am not sure it is our place to know all the
 possible ripples that sharing our truth brings to others. It is
 almost like trying to control unschooling :)) We can do our part
 (and that includes being relatively responsible about what media
 source we are sharing our truth with -- I mean, I would, personally,
 not be so sharing with, say, Fox lol), and trust that receivers are
 doing theirs. I feel that if we are quiet and silent out of fear, we
 are doing a disservice to ourselves and our community. If we ARE
 afraid, there are things we can add to this to balance out the
 possible negative reprocussions -- we can flood YouTube and google
 with positive information about unschooling and hope that people
 will have lots of information to sift through when they see it on tv
 and it perks their interest. And if they see it and just think it is
 bad or crazy and have no interest in researching it more, that's on
 them and they probably couldn't have been reached anyway. And who
 cares if they walk around for the rest of their life with a negative
 opinion of unschooling? I think of all the people it could reach
 positively. And I think of how social change comes from voicing and
 criticism and a big social fad (like living more "green") and then
 eventually acceptance. But if we prolong the inevitable, I think we
 do a huge disservice to future generations of potential unschoolers.
 Unschooling has so many wonderful voices now as a foundation, and I
 wonder what it could be if we turned it lose and let it be free :))

Btw, this is my friend's e-mail that got me thinking :))
I am in favor of publicity for unschooling. There is no bad publicity! :) Even if unschooling is shown in a way we do not approve of people will hear about it. After seeing the coverage they can think about it. Maybe they will see something else later. Eventually they will make up their own minds.
A case could be made for keeping a low profile. By avoiding publicity we may prevent repercussions like stricter homeschooling laws. But if the media has decided a story is of interest, they are going to do it. No sense in letting them do it without us. I would like the representative of the unschoolers to be the most informed, experienced and well spoken person possible. Anyone want to step up?