Today’s photo has been three years in the making. It’s a picture of a double-crested cormorant.

Now, cormorants are pretty common around here, so you might wonder just what took so long. The story is simple: I took a nice picture of one of our local cormorants about three years ago. But I never got around to using it, and then I bought a new camera. The new camera was so much sharper than the old one that I no longer wanted to use the old picture. I wanted a new picture that would be sharper. But over time, my efforts became a sort of running gag. Every time I took my camera along on a walk, there were no cormorants. Every time there were cormorants, I didn’t have my camera.

But last week my patience finally paid off. I took my camera along on a walk and our little flock of cormorants was out! I took a quick picture. Then I got closer and a couple of them flew away. I took more pictures. Then I got closer still and a couple more flew off. Finally I got even closer and snapped some pictures just as one got spooked and the other was still posing. A few seconds later it took off too.

But I got a nice picture! Finally. After three years I can now go back to not caring about cormorants.

February 5, 2020 — Irvine, California

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ON MOTHER JONES' FINANCES

We need to start being more upfront about how hard it is keeping a newsroom like Mother Jones afloat these days.

Because it is, and because we're fresh off finishing a fiscal year, on June 30, that came up a bit short of where we needed to be. And this next one simply has to be a year of growth—particularly for donations from online readers to help counter the brutal economics of journalism right now.

Straight up: We need this pitch, what you're reading right now, to start earning significantly more donations than normal. We need people who care enough about Mother Jones’ journalism to be reading a blurb like this to decide to pitch in and support it if you can right now.

Urgent, for sure. But it's not all doom and gloom!

Because over the challenging last year, and thanks to feedback from readers, we've started to see a better way to go about asking you to support our work: Level-headedly communicating the urgency of hitting our fundraising goals, being transparent about our finances, challenges, and opportunities, and explaining how being funded primarily by donations big and small, from ordinary (and extraordinary!) people like you, is the thing that lets us do the type of journalism you look to Mother Jones for—that is so very much needed right now.

And it's really been resonating with folks! Thankfully. Because corporations, powerful people with deep pockets, and market forces will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. Only people like you will.

There's more about our finances in "News Never Pays," or "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," and we'll have details about the year ahead for you soon. But we already know this: The fundraising for our next deadline, $350,000 by the time September 30 rolls around, has to start now, and it has to be stronger than normal so that we don't fall behind and risk coming up short again.

Please 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.

—Monika Bauerlein, CEO, and Brian Hiatt, Online Membership Director

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