Five Memes That Deserve to Die

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My latest for the magazine is online now, and it’s a pre-election piece called “Five Memes That Deserve to Die.” That’s the subhead, anyway. The real headline is “Invasion of the Brain-Devouring Platitudes,” which goes better with the conceit of our horror movie cover featuring Sarah Palin as a 50-foot woman. (Explained here.) Basically, it’s a collection of five memes about the election that I’m pretty sure are wrongheaded regardless of how things turn out next Tuesday. Which is convenient, since I don’t know how things are going to turn out next Tuesday.

As it happens, I wasn’t very happy with how the piece turned out. But I’ve always wondered what the journalistic etiquette is for that kind of thing. Go ahead and admit it? Or just promo it as usual? I’m not sure. Besides, I read through it again this morning and it didn’t seem all that bad after all. So maybe I was just in a cranky mood the week I wrote it. I’m sure you’ll all let me know in comments.

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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