December 6, 2017

Another Hyphen Bites the Dust

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The times, they are a changing:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is taking the stores out of Wal-Mart. The retail behemoth with more than 11,700 locations around the world announced Wednesday that it will shorten its legal name to Walmart Inc.

….Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in 1962 in Rogers, Ark., after opening several stores with other names including a Walton’s 5 & 10. The name Walmart came from Bob Bogle, one of the first store managers, according to Mr. Walton’s autobiography. The company incorporated in 1969 as Wal-Mart Inc., then became Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in 1970 when it went public.

I’m afraid the Wall Street Journal missed the real story here: Wal-Mart also removed its hyphen. Actually, they did this years ago, but no one seemed to catch on, possibly because the company’s legal name was still Wal-Mart. But now there’s no excuse.

Hyphens have always been the great disappearing punctuation mark, used for a short while and then abandoned, and now Walmart has abandoned the last vestige of Sam Walton’s hyphen. As usual, though, it did yeoman work for decades before it was finally killed off. So let’s all observe a moment of silence and respect for Walmart’s hyphen.

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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.

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