October 12, 2009

Need To Read: October 12, 2009

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Today’s must-reads are at work on Columbus Day:

  • “Is Columbus Day Sailing Off the Calendar?” [WSJ]
  • Obama’s speech on gay equality was “highfalutin bullshit” [Sullivan/The Atlantic]
  • Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell protects bigots [WaPo op ed]
  • Great Recession Landmark: 100 failed US banks [NYTimes]
  • Nobel Prize in economics goes to Americans Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom, the first woman win the award [BBC]
  • George Soros invests a cool billion in clean tech [FT]
  • “Yes We Can (Get Republicans to Support Climate Bill)” [NYTimes op ed]
  • Obama should earn that Nobel at the Copenhagen Climate Conference [MoJo]
  • The White House goes on the offensive against Fox News [TPM]
  • Iran sentences three post-election protesters to death [AP]
  • Armenia and Turkey sign a peace deal and reopen their border for the first time since 1993 [Reuters]
  • The dangers of drudgery: bad jobs are killing people [The Economist]
  • Google co-founder Sergey Brin defends the controversial Google Books project [NYTimes op ed]
  • Listen to Michael Jackson’s final single, the appropriately titled “This Is It” [Bitten and Bound]

Nick Baumann posts pieces like these throughout the day on twitter. You should follow him for more must-reads. David Corn, Mother Jones’ DC bureau chief, also tweets. So do my colleagues Daniel Schulman, Rachel Morris, Kate Sheppard and our editors-in-chief, Clara Jeffery and Monika Bauerlein. Follow them too! (The magazine’s main account is @motherjones.)

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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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