An experiment in doing the right thing.

This week NCPR is trying to convince you to support us.

Wait!  Stop!

I know…your instinct is to click away.  Maybe half of you already have.

Before you go — spend ten seconds thinking about whether this source of ideas, conversation and civil discourse matters to you…even a little.

Take just ten seconds more (hey, I’m still under half a minute!) to think about what your radio dial and your internet would look like without North Country Public Radio and NCPR.org.

Here’s why I want you to pause and think:

I’m a skeptic.  I’m honestly not convinced that in the new on-line culture that’s evolving there’s a publicly-supported place for what we do.

A lot of you grew up getting stuff on-line for free, from Napster to the front page of the New York Times website.  Free is cool, right?

No.

Free sucks when it means you don’t have reporters who can spend time going deep on stories.  Free stinks when you don’t have people who can moderate discussions, keeping them civil and interesting.

Free REALLY stinks when what it really means — when you cut away all the blather — is that your website (and your radio dial) are actually owned, funded and controlled by big corporations that make their money in other ways (often by selling your personal data to advertisers.)

So before you click away, go here and give something.  We’ve had people give $7.  We had one person drop $17.50 in the bucket.

I know, I know — I’ve burned up my twenty seconds of your time and then some.

But if you ARE clicking away without sharing the load, go forth burdened with this question:  What if the experiment fails?

What if it turns out that all of us who natter on about wanting quality and good conversation and honest debate and real information can’t actually be bothered to help make it happen?

Honestly.  Wouldn’t you rather chip in $10 than burn part of your day on that depressing possibility?