As I’ve discussed before, our TPMPrime subscriptions are $50 a year. That’s a manageable sum for the vast majority of our readers if TPM is an important part of your information diet. But for some of our readers that’s more money than they can easily part with. And to the extent we’re able, we don’t want to exclude people from this core part of the TPM community because of financial need. That’s why we came up with our subscription credit program. Readers purchase subscription credit which we’ll assign to other readers who lack financial means. For a further description of why we’re doing this, who benefits and why we think it’s important, see this earlier post. My point in writing tonight is to say we now have our first batch of credits. So if you’re interested in applying for one, join me after the jump to find out how.
If you’d like to purchase a credit for another reader, click here.
To make this work we have to verify financial need to the extent we can. This is potentially awkward since it necessarily involves requiring some personal information. We have no desire to pry or get into anyone’s business. But we’re also the custodians of these credits. Other readers have put up this money not knowing who it will benefit because they trust that we’ll make sure it’s making it possible for someone to join who would not otherwise be able to do so for financial reasons. So we must honor that trust.
So we’ve come up with the following system.
We will consider you eligible if you in the following categories.
1. You are 22 or younger, can provide proof of your age and that you are currently enrolled in school as a full time student and tell us that you cannot afford the $50 fee for Prime.
2. You are 65 or older, can provide proof of your age and tell us that you cannot afford the $50 fee for Prime.
3. You are between 23 and 64 and cannot afford the $50 fee for Prime. We will need you to provide documentation to back up your financial need. We are leaving open what sort of information you can share to confirm your financial status. We don’t want or need to know everything about you. But we need something specific and tangible to verify that your current financial means are such that you can’t easily afford the fee.
Only two people at TPM will be involved in reviewing these applications, myself and one of my colleagues.
To be clear, we have no financial incentive to give more or fewer credits since we can only assign as many as other readers have already purchased. Readers with credit subscriptions have the exact access, privileges, features etc as readers who purchased their own.
To apply, send an email to joe (at) talkingpointsmemo.com. If you have general questions, drop us a line at the normal comments email address at the upper right of the site.
I welcome your feedback on the process we’ve set up. We are open to suggestions on how to refine our process to best accomplish the goal.
