December 14, 2018

What Happened Today?

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I can barely keep up with the news anymore. Here is just today:

  • Donald Trump’s inauguration committee is under investigation. Apparently they managed to spend twice as much as any other recent president for an inaugural celebration that was half the size of any other recent president.
  • Maria Butina pleaded guilty to infiltrating the NRA on behalf of Russia.
  • Trump is now on his fourth (fifth?) version of events surrounding hush money paid to his mistresses.
  • But wait. Trump was present at meetings where hush money was discussed (though note the source).
  • Republicans who eagerly impeached Bill Clinton and called for the prosecution of John Edwards are now busily taking to the airwaves to insist that extramarital sex is no big deal, payoffs don’t count as campaign contributions, and lying about trivial sex stuff is just something everyone does.
  • Before big events, Trump crushes up Adderall and snorts it.
  • Wait. What? I can’t tell if that one is a joke or not.
  • Both Newt Gingrich and Jared Kushner are rumored to be candidates for Trump’s chief of staff. Wouldn’t it be awesome if they were co-chiefs?
  • Trump has decided he doesn’t want to shut down the government after all.
  • The Senate voted to end US support for the war in Yemen.

I’m probably missing some stuff. I don’t even know anymore.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

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