Fashion is Less Important Than Literature

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Over at Jezebel, Katie J. M. Baker is angry that the New York Times profiled the female-founded New Inquiry in the Style section and the male-founded Jacobin in the Books section. I don’t blame her. But then we get this rote bit of defensiveness:

This is not to say that fashion is less important than literature.

Fine. I’ll say it. Fashion is less important than literature. That’s why the Times shouldn’t natter on about fashion and flirting when they profile cultural magazines founded by women but focus on ideas and hard work when they profile similar magazines founded by men. There’s no need to pretend otherwise, and it’s no insult to fashion to place it somewhere behind Shakespeare and H.L. Mencken.

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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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