November 12, 2019

Just How Bad Is LAX?

Wheels up at LAX for a red-eye flight.Kevin Drum

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From the Wall Street Journal:

LAX, like some other airports, is a collection of terminals built around one double-deck roadway, with one level for departures and another for arrivals. Both are so clogged it can take an hour just to drop someone off after you enter the airport.

If you click the link, you get this story from 2016:

“Traffic is crazier than usual. It’s been a rough summer,” says Cheryl Berkman, chief executive of Music Express, a limousine service operating in several cities. At LAX, it’s taken some cars 45 minutes or more to loop 1.3 miles around the terminals.

“Some cars” have taken 45 minutes—from a story more than three years old—has magically morphed into “it can take an hour.” Journalism!

FWIW, I’ve picked up and dropped off at LAX lots of times. It’s a mess, and I don’t doubt that there are occasions when it takes 45 minutes to make the full loop. But in all the times I’ve done it, I don’t think it’s ever taken me more than 15 minutes or so. I get that hyperbole sells, but cherry picking the very worst examples and making them sound like they’re typical does no one a service.

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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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