December 3, 2015

Here’s the Awful Way the New York Post Changed Its San Bernardino Shooting Cover


Early Thursday morning, police officials announced the identities of two suspects believed to be behind the deadly rampage in San Bernardino, California, that killed 14 people and injured 17 others. Authorities had been searching for Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, after the two alleged gunmen opened fire inside a center that helps individuals with developmental disabilities and then drove away in a black SUV. Farook and Malik were later killed in a gunfire exchange with the police.

With the official release of their names, the New York Post made the editorial decision to change its front-page headline with the following:

Blatant bigotry aside, it’s also important to call out the Post’s inconsistent focus on religion in the aftermath of mass shootings in America. After last Friday’s Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado, the paper did not feature a story about the attack on its front page, nor did its editors label that shooter a “Christian Killer” in any accompanying stories. Instead, on Saturday, the New York tabloid demeaned the city’s homeless population with a cover story headlined “How The Bums Stole Christmas.”

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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