If a Golden Globe Falls in the Forest and Nobody’s There to Watch It…

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mojo-photo-goldenglobes.JPG…Are they more likely to give them to deserving shows? Answer: kind of. Honestly, I’m being a bad journalist here since I didn’t actually see any televised reading of the winners; apparently Nancy O’Dell and Billy Bush chuckled their way through a list of winners on NBC and the E! network featured a half-hour reading at some point. When I was flipping through the channels last night, my Comcast program guide showed a “Golden Globes Pre-Show” leading directly into a “Golden Globes Aftershow,” giving the impression that the event had been compressed into a single point like a black hole. And when Time Magazine headlines their article: “The Golden Globes – Who Cares?” you know things are bad.

Perhaps the voters had a bit of a “screw it, nobody’s watching anyway” attitude, since at least some of their TV awards went to relatively surprising and deserving programs: AMC’s smoky “Mad Men” won best dramatic TV series, with their lead Jon Hamm wining the actor award; Ricky Gervais’ “Extras,” which came to a strange and bitter end last year, won for best comedy series. Why David Duchovny won for best actor in a comedy series is anybody’s guess, although name recognition always helps. Tina Fey’s acting win for “30 Rock” was the only award for broadcast television the whole night. On the movie side, “Atonement” and Daniel Day Lewis both won and both look like Oscar locks, Cate Blanchett won for her Bob Dylan impression, and best director went to Julian Schnabel for “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” his harrowing and uplifting portrayal of a French stroke victim who, unable to move anything but his left eyelid, dictates his memoirs by blinking in code. I know, oof, but seriously, go see it.

Above photo from Gothamist

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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