[act-ma] Invitation to the Open Media Co-op Organizing Meeting, 11/17, 6 p.m.

[OMB]

**INVITATION**

(please forward widely)

Boston area progressives are cordially invited to attend the

Open Media Co-operative Organizing Meeting
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
6-8 p.m.
Community Church of Boston
Guatemala Room
565 Boylston St.
3rd Floor
Boston
(right near Copley Square Green and Orange Line T stops)
Map: http://bit.ly/9AbubV

**AGENDA**

The meeting will be divided into two parts.

The first part - which will last about 30 minutes - will be for the 
general public and will explain the history of the idea of founding a 
consumer co-op for an online news publication like Open Media Boston, 
how we'd like it to work, and how people can get involved.

The second part - which will last about an hour and a half - will be for 
people who decide to commit to joining the Open Media Co-op as its 
founding members, pledge a minimum of (roughly) $8 a month, and get 
involved with regular work on the co-op.

Light refreshments will be served.

**GOAL**

The goal of the Open Media Co-op is to help build Open Media Boston into 
a progressive news publication that is sustainable over the long term. 
We'd like more paid staff, we'd like to pay our freelancers, we'd like 
to come out more often than weekly, and we'd like to compete with the 
mainstream media for an ever-growing share of the Boston area news 
audience. We think a co-op is the alternative economic organizational 
form most likely to help us reach our goal.

**BACKGROUND**

As stated in a number of Open Media Boston editorials, we're starting a 
co-op because we think it may be the only way to survive and thrive over 
the long term - and keep on providing the kind of quality metro news 
coverage and progressive editorial stances that we know our audience has 
come to expect.

We also think that a co-op will be popular with our largely progressive 
audience - because a co-operator will mean getting directly involved in 
democratically-running a media business.

Rather than being a passive investor or donor or subscriber, 
co-operators will help make Open Media Boston go - putting in some cash 
and "sweat equity" every month to provide themselves with 
up-to-the-minute news about their community and the world around it. 
News that's produced by journalists who have a strong commitment to 
democracy and social justice. To "afflicting the comfortable and 
comforting the afflicted" as the old adage goes. Which unfortunately is 
not the standard for news media in this day and age.

Each Open Media Co-op member will get to cast votes that determine how 
the co-op runs and therefore how Open Media Boston grows over the months 
and years to come. Open Media Boston will become a member-owned 
publication - which we think will be a real advance - and blaze a path 
for future media co-ops to follow all over the country.

**SURVEY**

We'd like to encourage anyone who is interested in the Open Media Co-op 
concept to take a few minutes to fill out our survey - whether you can 
make our organizing meeting or not. We'll be using the data from the 
survey to gauge community interest in the concept and identify what kind 
of participation we can expect from our co-operators.

Just click the following link to get to the survey on Google

http://bit.ly/cePZDY


Look forward to talking about the Open Media Co-op with folks at the 
meeting and in general.

Best regards,

Jason Pramas
Editor/Publisher
Open Media Boston

Questions? Comments? Email me at info at openmediaboston.org.