July/August 1995 Issue

Media Picks

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A sampling of what’s new and noteworthy, chosen with a little help from our friends:

 

“This is the eloquent testimony of an extremely gifted writer. Those who have investigated his case are convinced that he is innocent. He is the true victim of political venom.”

So says author and avid reader Jessica Mitford of Live from Death Row (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1995), a collection of prison writings from the pen of death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist and black activist found guilty of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1982. Abu-Jamal could be put to death within the year. Check out the World Wide Web for more information:

http://www.igc.apc.org/prisons/mumia.html

 

Remember the old “money river” theory from Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater? Turns out, it’s true and meticulously documented by Thomas Ferguson in The Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). Ferguson offers staggering evidence that big money interests have played, and continue to play, a determining role in U.S. politics.

Emergency Contraception: The Nation’s Best-Kept Secret (Atlanta: Bridging the Gap, 1995) details readily available methods of preventing pregnancy within 72 hours after intercourse. To order, call: 1 (800) 847-3988, or log onto the World Wide Web for related news and updates at

http://opr.princeton.edu/ec/ec.html

Passage to Vietnam is the latest interactive coffee-table CD/book from Rick Smolan (Alice to Ocean, the Day in the Life series), who is joined by 70 photographers in a look at the “new” Vietnam. The project is published by Against All Odds and Interval Research.

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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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