RALEIGH – As I am headed to Seattle to make a promotional appearance for my book Investor Politics, and thus not focused on the North Carolina political scene at the moment, I thought it might be a good opportunity to inform readers who have only recently discovered Carolina Journal about its publisher, the John Locke Foundation.
The Locke Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank devoted primarily to state and local public policy issues. We are purely a North Carolina born and bred organization, which comes as a surprise to the more conspiratorially minded, and fund ourselves by voluntary contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations that, with few exceptions, are located within the state.
Our mission is to “develop and promote solutions to North Carolina’s most critical challenges” and to “transform state and local government through competition, innovation, personal freedom, and personal responsibility in order to strike a better balance between the public sector and private institutions of family, faith, community, and enterprise.”
In addition to traditional think tank work – publishing studies, holding events and conferences, testifying before governmental bodies, etc. – the Locke Foundation also maintains a division devoted to publishing Carolina Journal, a monthly newspaper on state politics and public policy issues. It has about 15,000 readers across the state, including public officials, business executives, reporters, nonprofit executives, and other opinion leaders. Carolina Journal also keeps thousands of readers informed through CJ Weekly Report, delivered by fax and email each weekend, and Carolina Journal Online, where you are reading this.
We publish Carolina Journal partly because we have always believed that we should communicate as much as possible with our primary audience – policymakers and opinion leaders in North Carolina – without having our message “mediated” by the press. That is not to say that we shun coverage by the mainstream media. Far from it. We work very hard to provide North Carolina journalists with timely and useful information, analysis of state and local issues, and opinion columns that will add insight and diversity to newspaper editorial pages.
During the average week, policy analysts at the Locke Foundation are quoted by 16 newspapers across the state on various issues, with a combined circulation of roughly 735,000 North Carolinians. Our analysts are also quoted on an average of 23 radio news broadcasts and talk shows each week, and appear on nine television broadcasts.
While the Locke Foundation serves as a traditional think tank source for news reports, journalists and contributing writers at Carolina Journal are regularly appearing on the op-ed pages. My weekly column appears in some 30 newspapers and business journals in the state, with a weekly circulation just shy of 500,000. A separate weekly op-ed written by Carolina Journal staffers and guest columnists, called “Carolina Beat,” reaches another 200,000 newspaper readers in an average week.
We hope you continue to find our work useful. And, for obviousreasons, please don’t hold it against us if we don’t immediately respond to your (very welcome) phone calls, letters, and emails. We’re pretty busy.