Audible’s Cultural Imprint and Newark Working Kitchens Featured in Regional, National Media

Don spoke about Audible’s mission, history and purpose in Newark and Ralph Ellison’s influence on him in an Aug. 12 profile in The Record (NorthJersey.com), titled “Audible transformed how we read. Now, the NJ-based company is out to change the world.”

“I often say to people, if you want to understand Audible, think of the pleasures of being read to as a child,” Katz said.

Did you love bedtime stories as a kid?

Well, how would you like it if Anne Hathaway, Kate Winslet or Samuel L. Jackson read to you?

And if you like stories, how about nonfiction? Current events? Self-improvement? Get-ahead-in-business books? And if you like listening in cars, and while you jog, how about airplanes (Audible has kiosks in many major air hubs)?

And if you like books, how about podcasts? Radio programs? Newspapers and magazines, read to you as you drive? Original content, like the new 11-hour audio version of Neil Gaiman’s classic graphic novel “The Sandman,” with Gaiman, Riz Ahmed, Bebe Neuwirth, Andy Serkis and many others? And if you like that, how about new works—specially commissioned by Audible, featuring local authors, read by local actors?

The piece highlights Newark Working Kitchens (NWK), an Audible-led effort activating local restaurants to provide meals to 10,000 city residents. “This is keeping the lights on, honestly,” Sean McGovern, a third-generation co-owner of McGovern’s Tavern, told The Record. “If we weren’t doing this, in terms of our bottom line, we’d be completely boarded up. … Audible is a tremendous corporate citizen.”

An Aug. 10 Fast Company piece celebrated NWK as a “creative way” Audible is helping restaurants survive. Bloomberg on Aug. 5 spotlighted the “all-star team” behind the effort, including chef Marcus Samuelsson, whose Marcus B&P restaurant in Newark has produced thousands of meals for NWK, and Newark native Michael B. Jordan.