I’ve been a fan of the New York Times daily headlines email for many years. It’s the first stop on my morning news beat, because (I confess) I check email in bed with my first cup of morning coffee. I don’t always click through to an article, but sometimes I click through to more than one, and I always give the newsletter at least a good scan.  I’m listening, of course, to Todd Moe and Morning Edition at the same time. Between them, I feel I have the start to a well-informed day.

My love of the NYT email newsletter led me years ago to create a weekdaily email  for NCPR, but it seems to be a well-guarded secret–only 400 subscribers, compared to more than 4,000 for this weekly Listening Post. At first, I thought, maybe not everyone gobbles down news like I do. But then I realized, probably most of you don’t even know it exists.

And that’s because the most common way to become subscribed to the Listening Post is to make a donation to NCPR, and to check the box that gives us permission to send you email on the donation form. We’ve always just signed you up for the Listening Post, but only because the Daily Regional News Brief didn’t exist when we started doing this. To get the News Brief, you have had to scout out the location of our subscription page in the clutter of our website and sign yourself up. Oh the weight of habit.

For those who have never seen it, it has all of the news stories from The Eight O’clock Hour, plus the Photo of the Day, plus the top NPR news stories at the time of sending, plus all the events in today’s Community Calendar. Tomorrow’s edition will also carry the three most recent posts from our In Box news blog. Basically, it’s our home page and our calendar, delivered to you every day. Free, of course.

This is by far the easiest and most comprehensive way to keep up with the full range of what’s happening in the region and at NCPR. I encourage all of you to sign up. Go here, enter your email address, check the box next to “Daily Headlines.” Click submit. Done.

It will come to you every weekday, just in time for your mid-morning coffee break.

Many of you have already met BOB, the Big Orange Box, which occasionally fills up part of the screen at ncpr.org, before settling down in a few seconds over in the right-hand column. BOB is a one-trick pony–only has one thing to say–”Give Now.” BOB was born a few weeks before our Spring fundraiser, and since the drive ended I’ve begun to hear from a few visitors asking:

“What gives? I already gave. The fundraiser is over. You made your goal. Why are you punishing me?”

In response, we have put BOB on a diet–he has slimmed down a little, disappeared from page one, has been dressed up with better graphics, and doesn’t appear quite so frequently.

But BOB is not going to go away, even though we are done with the week-long radio drive. Why? It’s not because we are greedy, or are punishing our fundraiser donors for doing the right thing.  We are more grateful than you know. Because you radio listeners have been paying almost all the freight for building and maintaining ncpr.org.

Over the last twelve years, NCPR has built up a whole second audience that rarely or never listens to NCPR on the radio. They don’t ever hear the radio fundraiser, and few of them contribute. The “ask” for contributions on our website has been pretty quiet, too quiet.  We’ve concluded that our online-only audience needs some kind of regular high-profile reminder that NCPR is paid for with voluntary contributions by its users. We certainly aren’t shy about asking for donations on the radio.

Hence BOB. He’s big and a little annoying, but necessary. BOB can make a big difference to us and to our radio audience. While 40-50,000 people are regular radio listeners to NCPR, more than a million different individuals used our online services last year. It would take only a small percentage of them, giving a little bit each, to really change the sustainability math at NCPR. As changing media technologies cause more and more people to move online, the art of raising money online will determine whether this service survives.

So, if you are one of the folks who regularly do your bit for NCPR, thank you. Just ignore BOB when he turns up. He’ll get out of your way in 3.5 seconds. If you are one of those who can’t quite remember whether you are reading USA Today, Huffington Post or NCPR at the moment, BOB will set you straight. Click on him to win a free ride to our donation page.