June 23, 2020

Novak Djokovic Has COVID-19

Great tennis player, but maybe not the best guy to get COVID-19 advice from.Marko Dimic/Xinhua/ZUMA

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Novak Djokovic, the #1 tennis player in the world, has tested positive for COVID-19 after playing in a tournament in Croatia. Does this mean it’s still unsafe to hold tennis tournaments? Maybe, but then again:

During the tour, Djokovic and his guests had done all sorts of things that were normal before a global pandemic and completely cringe-inducing in the middle of one. They embraced at the net after matches. They played pickup basketball. They partied in a Belgrade nightclub, where videos show them limbo dancing, occasionally without shirts on and never wearing a mask.

Nick Kyrgios, the Australian hothead who’s constantly getting grief for his antics on court, responded quickly:

I think the bottom line here is that if normal precautions are taken and you don’t act like an idiot, tennis tournaments are probably pretty safe. But I guess we’ll find out in five weeks when New York hosts the world’s biggest tennis tournament.

POSTSCRIPT: I do, however, have a gripe about the Journal’s suggestion that Djokovic endangered himself by not wearing a mask. I see this all the time and it’s not true. Djokovic endangered everyone else by not wearing a mask.

Now, if the article had stated that Djokovic endangered himself by going to nightclubs where other people weren’t wearing masks—which is pretty likely, right?—that would have been completely correct.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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