October 11, 2010

Baggage Fee Blues

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A maker of fashionable traveling vests got his ads booted from Delta’s inflight magazine last month:

The proposed ad read: “The most stylish way to beat the system. Scottevest travel clothing has specialized pockets to help you stay organized and avoid extra baggage fees.”

Scottevest founder Scott Jordan claims the ad got nixed because Delta Air Lines didn’t want to bring attention to those annoying baggage fees. In the second quarter this year, Delta collected $256 million in baggage fees — the most of any airline in the industry.

You know, there’s another way Delta could avoid attention being directed at their annoying baggage fees…..

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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