January 29, 2007

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Embarrassing gaffs, humiliating moments, there’s nothing like amateur video to make laughter heard round the world. Now you can tap in to what makes the Arab world tick in the file-sharing universe with the Arab language site Ikbis.com. Along the YouTube vein you can find all sorts of photos and videos that, well, we don’t see on YouTube. Like this still from Iraq, this video of a Palestinian ambulance backing into a victim or “this clip, of a giggling man at a prayer sesion, which has nearly 12,000 hits to date. Humor abounds at the site, launched in November, but politics are also common on Ikbis (tagline, “Capture your Life”), with Bush parodies, the Saddam video (now down) and war footage we just don’t see on CNN. Definitely worth clicking through every so often, for the raw footage, and for a new window into funny.

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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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