As we prepared the initial articles for NonDoc Media’s launch on Aug. 31, 2015, a surprising headline caught my attention. In a post titled, Till Next Time, Oklahoma, a co-founder of the local Oxford Karma online publication announced that its OKC-area arts and entertainment coverage would conclude after only eight months.
“We took a significant risk when we conceived this site, and the bitter realities of a highly competitive yet relatively obstinate market ultimately got the best of it,” the post said.
Preparing to put our own news website on the public’s radar hours later, I felt a lump in my throat.
Were we prepared? Could we survive? Did our outlet have a clear lane and enough energy to make even one lap around the sun? How were our revenue pathways looking? Would this be a fool’s errand that would make me question quitting a cubicle job months prior? I went to journalism school, not business school, so would this entire endeavor become an exercise of arrogance in a maladapted media market?
Somehow — thanks to support from readers like you — NonDoc survived its fledgling years, relaunched after a brief (and strategic) December 2018 shutdown, and gained the momentum necessary to achieve a round-number milestone one decade later.
From 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 4, NonDoc will be celebrating its 10th birthday with a public party at Lively Beerworks, 815 S.W. 2nd St. in Oklahoma City. We would love to have you drop by, meet members of our growing newsroom and raise a glass to the work of sustaining local journalism.
To that end, whether you can attend this party or not, we are asking readers to support NonDoc’s next 10 years by:
- Becoming a $10-per-month donor;
- Contributing to our Sustainable Journalism Endowment to help us raise $10,000 and close out this year’s matching campaign; and/or
- Reviewing our new Planned Giving Page to learn more ways that your assets can support nonprofit journalism.
If financial times are tough and a donation is not in your cards, readers can still support our cause by sending this post and NonDoc’s (free) newsletter or direct-text subscription links to 10 friends. NonDoc’s journalism will always be free to consume, but it is not free to produce.
10 years of ‘examining each case on its merits’
Thinking back over the past decade, I am humbled by all the support and effort of those who have made this media organization possible.
As I work every day with a slate of talented journalists who never experienced The News Parlor or The News Dungeon, I am forever grateful to former NonDoc managing editor Josh McBee, the brains behind so many sayings and jokes that still live in The News Nest. Without Josh, NonDoc would never have survived. The same can be said of Rosemary Meacham-Zittel, Dr. Ashiq Zaman, Angela Anne Jones, Michael McNutt, Kylie Hushbeck, Bennett Brinkman and so many others that starting a comprehensive list of key contributors would use up this year’s supply of bullet points.
In all, growing a news organization from the ground up has meant a lot of digging, a lot of enduring and a lot of investment big and small — from $50,000 unexpected gifts to $5 donors who might think (incorrectly) that their contributions fail to make a difference.
Each of you who has ever donated financially or contributed content holds a place in my heart. To the charitable sponsors and grant-making organizations who have helped us along the way, please know how deeply I appreciate your willingness to support a (now) nonprofit newsroom like NonDoc, which draws its name from the word nondoctrinaire — “not rigidly devoted to any particular doctrine or theory” — that I first saw in a quote from Walter Cronkite.
“I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause — but examining each case on its merits,” Cronkite said in 1973. “Being left of center is another thing; it’s a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they’re not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they’re preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can’t be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism.”
If that’s the kind of journalism you appreciate, please consider attending our Sept. 4 party and becoming a $10-per-month donor to support the coworkers I love and the content we create for the next 10 years.
Photos from 10 years of NonDoc parties
