August 25, 2011

Steve Jobs

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I’ve never been susceptible to the Steve Jobs reality distortion field. The only time I ever used an Apple product was in the late 80s, when my company bought a bunch of Mac SEs. I hated mine and was delighted when we finally gave up on them.

So my admiration for the guy is completely dispassionate. But genuine nonetheless. He was largely responsible for the Apple II, the Macintosh, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. That’s five dazzling, smash hit products in four completely different product areas. Toss in Pixar and it’s six huge successes in five areas. I’m honestly not sure that any other businessman/inventor/product designer in the past century has a record quite that brilliant. We’re not likely to see his equal anytime soon.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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