January 16, 2007

L’Oreal Slips Through Golden Globe Swag Loophole?

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Elizabeth reports below that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (known only for producing the Golden Globes) have, thanks to IRS pressure, eschewed handing out ridiculously lush goodie bags to celebrities earning multi millions at a ceremony designed to up their status and therefore their earnings.

Who’s gonna tell Vanity Fair? In the January issue, the FanFair section (which seems designed to get its editors swag aplenty) reports:

The Kwiat Diamonds [their boldface] compact for L’Oreal Paris [ditto], valued at $10,000, will be included in all Golden Globe nominees gift bags. Kwiat’s design was inspired by Old Hollywood glamour, complete with a “red carpet” ruby embedded in the clasp. A less expensive version in rhinestones, which benefits the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, is now available.

Ugh, especially love the treachly pinkwashing justification. L’Oreal, btw, is a regular advertiser in Vanity Fair and the sponsor of the Golden Globes — their once-a-break ads star folks like nine-time nominee, two-time winner Diane Keaton. Hey, now that’s synergy! (And Heather Locklear, six [!!!] nominations, which is kinda all you gotta say about the Golden Globes.)

Here at Mother Jones, there’s not nearly enough swag. Sometimes we get free Clif Bars. I thought for a moment that TerraPass had sent me some swag (free fluorescent lightbulbs!), but then I realized: it was my Mom.

(You can read about other perks of privilege here.)

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist 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 need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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