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The media becomes an activist for democracy
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Jan. 13, 2014, 12:19 p.m.
LINK: www.businesswire.com  ➚   |   Posted by: Joshua Benton   |   January 13, 2014

If you’re looking for against-the-grain experiments at newspapers, Aaron Kushner’s Orange County Register is probably the best place to find them these days. One of those experiments, which our Ken Doctor wrote about a year ago, attempts to tie being a Register subscriber to being a good member of your community. As Ken wrote:

ocreg-2012

The Register showered its 124,000 seven-day print subscribers with golden envelopes in November. In each envelope: a check for $100, made out to the Register. Subscribers were asked to pick their favorite local nonprofit or charity, endorse the check, and send it back to the paper. A “massive number” of subscribers responded, and 1,300 nonprofits are about to enjoy the fruits of the campaign. No, the nonprofits don’t get cash; they get advertising in the Register’s print or digital products.

It’s a massive stroke of goodwill, and p.r. It can be called a $12.4 million program — if all the 124,000 subscribers returned the $100 “checks” — though the $12.4 million is a price (of buying Register advertising), not a cost. So, for instance, the top three charities — The Salvation Army, The Wounded Warrior Project and the Orange County Rescue Mission — will collectively be able to spend $300,000 with the Register. That’s a considerable sum. It should both augment the profiles of the 1,300 charities that got some allocation and make the Register both more of a community citizen and a place to consider advertising down the road.

Whatever you think of Kushner’s other ideas — and some seem worth questioning — this one seems golden. You get proud subscribers and civic engagement at the cost of a commodity product that costs you either marginal newsprint prices or nothing at all.

It’s such a good idea that The Boston Globe has run with it:

Boston Globe Shutdown

The Boston Globe has a tremendous history of supporting the community through a variety of initiatives and partnerships. The GRANT program allows Boston Globe subscribers to direct which non-profits the Globe can further enable this year through what the Globe does best: reach engaged community members. Here’s how it works: home delivery and digital subscribers will be invited via a voucher sent in a silver envelope in the mail to direct promotional GRANT dollars toward the non-profit of their choice. Non-profits accumulate GRANT dollars, which are used toward the redemption of print advertisement space in the Globe.

[Owner John] Henry said, “While the GRANT program is the first of its kind in the region, we are emulating a similar successful program pioneered by the Orange County Register and its publisher Aaron Kushner.”

Not sure why Boston only gets silver envelopes while the OC gets gold — but metallic aesthetic quibbles aside, this is the sort of low-cost, high-benefit program a lot of other newspapers should be emulating to strengthen ties with its core readership.

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The media becomes an activist for democracy
“We cannot be neutral about this, by definition. A free press that doesn’t agitate for democracy is an oxymoron.”
Embracing influencers as allies
“News organizations will increasingly rely on digital creators not just as amplifiers but as integral partners in storytelling.”
Action over analysis
“We’ve overindexed on problem articulation, to the point of problem admiring. The risk is that we are analyzing ourselves into inaction and irrelevance.”