"That's what they're funded to do"

From Lawrence Wallack et al, News for a Change: An advocate's guide to working with the media

A while back, we received a phone call from a national organization interested in media campaigns that might reduce teen pregnancy; they wanted to create public service campaigns to tell teens to either abstain from sex or practice safer sex. We explained that such informational approaches, known as social marketing, had not been very effective in changing important health behaviors, and that trying to sell safe sex as if you were selling a product was unlikely to produce much in the way of positive results. We argued that, rather than merely giving teens a message about pregnancy, the organization should think about training groups of youth to work through the media to advocate policy changes such as school clinics, comprehensive sex education curricula, and other local policies that might have some impact on the conditions that contribute to the problem in the first place.

The caller listened politely and then explained that the focus we suggested made sense but that the people she worked with were funded to do informational media campaigns. Then, perhaps in an unguarded moment, she said that some groups were implementing mass media campaigns with an abstinence focus even though they believed such campaigns really did not work. We asked, "Why would they use an intervention that they didn't think was effective?" She responded, "Because that's what they're funded to do." When we asked why they would do something that they know won't work just because they have the money, she replied, "That's a good question."