April 11, 2005

Drudge gets desperate

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


Via the Center for American Progress:

The Drudge Report (a popular website run by right-wing activist Matt Drudge) has posted an image of an offensive t-shirt, along with a headline “Liberals Sell ‘DeLay Suicide T-shirt’.” It’s clearly a vicious, organized effort to demonize Tom DeLay.

Or not.

The “liberals” selling the shirt are actually … just one random guy named Christopher Goodwin. Christopher runs “Ye Olde Christopher Goodwin Art Shoppe” an online store (hosted for free by CafePress.com) where he sells drink coasters, tote bags, and throw pillows emblazoned mostly with images of his own “abstract and representational art”; only two of his featured items are political in nature, the DeLay shirt and a set of shirts that say “Bush Vile”. Christopher’s profile explains that he lives in Washington and “enjoys attending Small Claims Court hearings, interrogating his cats, and taking brisk walks on the roof.” According to Alexa.com, Christopher Goodwin’s website is the 2,071,537th most visited site on the Internet; to put that in perspective (and to make clear Goodwin’s profound obscurity) consider that the homepage for Chicken of the Sea tuna is ranked 163,081.

In other words, Drudge made a concerted attempt to find absolutely anything to take the heat off Tom DeLay’s various corruption charges, and the very best he could come up with was a stupid t-shirt from “Ye Olde Christopher Goodwin Art Shoppe.” Lame.

What he said.

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