Open Media Co-operative Organizing Meeting Scheduled for Mid-November

Regular Open Media Boston viewers have been seeing occasional editorials about our progress in forming a co-operative business to run alongside our existing non-profit since late last year. Now, we're pleased to announce that we're almost ready to launch our Open Media Co-operative - and we'd like to invite anyone interested in investing at least $3 a month who wants to help us build a strong progressive community news weekly to attend our co-operative organizing meeting.

As stated in previous 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. Being 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 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.

At the co-operative organizing meeting, we'll run through a simple agenda with everyone who attends. We'll propose, discuss, and vote on a simple preliminary structure for our co-op. We'll sign up meeting attendees to the co-op. We'll collect member dues. Assign member votes. Elect an initial Steering Committee. And select a Structure Committee to draft our proposed bylaws.

People worried that co-op meetings will focus overmuch on "process discussions" need not fear. We're looking to base our organizational structure on existing successful co-ops. We'll make decisions using a straightforward parliamentary process like most other co-ops. We'll spend appropriate amounts of time discussing and debating issues before our deliberative bodies, but we'll always strive to focus on the work at hand and get things done in a timely fashion. We're starting the co-op to make the best possible use of co-operators valuable time and money, not to squander either.

We'd like to get at least 50 members signed up before officially launching the Open Media Co-op. We've already got a good chunk of that number - many of whom attended our preliminary organizing meeting last month - but we thought that would be a good organizing target. Hopefully we can get to 50 members by the organizing meeting, but, if not, we'll keep working on recruitment after the meeting to get that number shortly thereafter. Once we've reached 50, we'll keep going. If we're going to ultimately pay several staff members at Open Media Boston and the new co-operative - which is one of our key goals - then we'll need thousands of co-op members. So outreach will be word one for all co-op members and staffers.

If you'd like to attend our Open Media Co-operative Organizing Meeting, please send us an email atinfo@openmediaboston.org, and tell us (very briefly) who you are, why you'd like to attend, and how much you expect to be able to invest in the co-op monthly. We'll respond to all serious inquiries will detailed information about the meeting - including date, time and place. If you have any general questions about our co-op idea, you can drop us a line at the same email.

We're excited to get this new project going, and we think building a successful co-op will make it possible to make Open Media Boston into a strong institution that will continue publishing for the foreseeable future.

We look forward to meeting the first group of co-operators. If you've got a few bucks and an hour or two a month to devote to this important project, we strongly encourage you to join us.

The democracy you save may be your own.

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Jason Pramas is Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston