Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The LA Times, that is.  Here is Doyle McManus today:

If it seems arbitrary — even unfair — to take the measure of a new president after just 100 days in office, you can blame Franklin D. Roosevelt.

No!  A thousand times no.  It’s the fault of lazy journalists who insist on hauling out this tired trope every few years no matter how inane it is.  McManus even admits a few paragraphs later that “for most leaders since FDR, the first three months have been an unreliable guide to the years that followed.”  That’s true!  So why perpetuate this nonsense?

Elsewhere, the Times brings its readership up to speed on the news that Rep. Jane Harman was overheard in an NSA wiretap agreeing to intervene in the espionage case of two pro-Israel lobbyists.  This story has been reported in detail by both Congressional Quarterly and the New York Times.  It’s been all over the blogosphere and cable news.  Harman’s district is in Los Angeles county.  It’s maybe 20 miles from the LAT’s main office.  So what do LA readers get?  About ten bland column inches buried at the very bottom of A11.  With her name misspelled in the headline.  Jesus.

On the bright side, the Times won a Pulitzer yesterday for a multipart special on wildfires. Congrats to Julie Cart and Bettina Boxall.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might 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.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might 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.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate