Communications Division

Good ideas about public policy in North Carolina can have no practical effect unless they are effectively communicated. The John Locke Foundation’s Communications Division, headed up by Vice President Jon Ham, offers a range of products and services designed to deliver news, analysis, and commentary to North Carolinians to three distinct audiences who have varying levels of daily interest in politics and public policy.

JLF’s primary audience comprises several thousand North Carolinians who serve in public office, hold senior-level government posts, seek to influence government decisions on a day-to-day basis, or cover government for media and public-interest organizations. JLF’s research reports, periodicals, email newsletters, websites, blogs, and events are of great interest to a large segment of this audience.

A secondary audience consists of about 800,000 North Carolinians, or 12 percent of the adult population. These are politically aware individuals who always vote, often volunteer for or donate to political campaigns, read daily newspapers closely, listen to talk radio or public radio, watch public-affairs TV shows, or otherwise participate actively in the political process. JLF relies on its Carolina Journal program as well as various mediated messages – newspaper columns, quotes in news stories, and appearances on radio and television talk shows – to communicate with this audience.

Finally, a broader audience is the remaining 2.6 million North Carolinians who typically vote in presidential-election years. Their main source of information on public policy is broadcast news, primarily television.

The Communications Division features two major programs: Media/Public Relations and Carolina Journal. They have made JLF one of the most effective communicators on state and local issues not just in North Carolina but in the entire nation. The Foundation has become “an ubiquitous voice” on “all issues of state government, budgets, and taxation,” according to one popular website on Southern politics and media. A left-wing newspaper based in Chapel Hill recognized the influence of JLF even if it didn’t like it: “The Locke Foundation is having a significant impact on policy in North Carolina, on policies that directly affect our lives.”

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