January 26, 2009

Off the Jetway and Into the Stocks

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pillory_stocks.jpgWord is out that Citigroup is finalizing the purchase of a $50 million corporate jet, complete with a luxury interior that includes leather seats, sofas, and a customizable entertainment center. The new jet will be managed by CitiFlight Inc., a Citi subsidiary that manages Citigroup’s entire fleet of corporate jets.

Why is this all so outrageous? (1) Because Citigroup has received $45 billion in taxpayers funds as part of the bailout program, money earned by hard-working American men and women who have never so much as sniffed first class. (2) Commercial air travel still exists in this country! Citigroup executives don’t even have to fly coach! They could fly business or first and still save money!

There is only one solution here. Please see the photo at right. President Obama, make it happen.

Update: Opprobrium works! Citigroup is backing down.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

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