Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

A look back at a look back at 1998

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At the end of every year in magazineland, history devolves into pithy lists of important events, quotidian grotesqueries, celebrity transgressions, and last year’s most potent political commentary: the dick joke. We offer the following chart as a public service to magazine editors who are no doubt already “conceptualizing” their looks back at 1999. This is what worked in 1998, and the hundred or so years before it. So there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work again.

Snappy proprietary package title High-concept visual element Total number of dick jokes Overcovered event of the year How’d we miss that?
Esquire Dubious Achievement Awards of 1998 “Jism in the News” graph plots how often the word “semen” is mentioned in the New York Times throughout the year. 19 See “jism” graph. “To protest ‘harassment’ of his brother Eric Rudolph, who is a suspect in numerous bombings…Daniel Rudolph cut off his left hand with a table saw and sent a video of the act to the FBI.”
TV Guide The Year in jeers TV actors dress up as the year’s most prominent figures 11 “Jewel wrote a book!” “O.J.Simpson surprised TV host Ruby Wax during a taped interview by stabbing her several times with a banana.”
US There’s Something About ’98 TV actors dress up as the year’s most prominent figures. 8 “Sexy: Jewel’s poetry” The first successful “fashion infomercial” hawks a dress with more than 100 looks. Says the garment’s model: “After a certain point, I think, the dress took over.”
Entertainment Weekly Best of 1998 TV actors dress up as themselves. 11 “The folkie’s tome reveals her tendency to both misspell the names of alleged influences and a fixation on breasts.” “To promote [her new yoga-influenced album, Ray of Light, Madonna] squishes Rosie O’Donnell into a few positions on the latter’s talk show….”
Artforum International Best of 1998 Lots of highbrow nudity 8 Veiled reference to Jewel: “Nothing in this world with a body and color is ever as simple as you think it is.” “[Claude] Wampler, as domineering mom in a steam bath with ‘jumbo shrimp’ Magic Markered on her forehead and some kind of jellied blood oozing from her nostrils, hurled Naumanesque abuse.”

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Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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