Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t

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Looks like John Edwards just can’t win. The netroots drama that has transpired over the past few days doesn’t show signs of letting up. Not only may Edwards have isolated the progressive online audience he sought to reach through liberal bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan (who he fired yesterday and rehired today), he looks to also have upset religious Democrats, a group he has worked long and hard to win over. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards sits on the board of Call to Renewal, a popular religious left organization. Maybe the lesson learned here is: do your homework. If you want to use liberal bloggers to reach out to a progressive audience, but you don’t want to isolate a group whose favor you have worked hard to cultivate, you should read their blogs before you hire them.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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