Deconstructing MoJo’s Haiti Reconstruction Story

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


Last week, Andrea Pitzer, the editor of Nieman Storyboard, a project of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, sent me an email. “Each month, we pick one outstanding narrative that is then poked and prodded by a group of top editors from around the US to see how it ticks,” she wrote. This month, they picked my feature “Aftershocks: Welcome to Haiti’s Reconstruction Hell.” 

Pitzer promised that being dissected by the editors would be “a little like getting an ice cream sundae while being beaten with a stick.” Indeed, some of their comments are flattering, some of them harsh, some bitingly true and then some, in my opinion, a little off the mark. If you’ve read the piece and want to see if you agree with the experts, check out the roundtable here.

OUR DEADLINE MATH PROBLEM

It’s risky, but also unavoidable: A full one-third of the dollars that we need to pay for the journalism you rely on has to get raised in December. A good December means our newsroom is fully staffed, well-resourced, and on the beat. A bad one portends budget trouble and hard choices.

The December 31 deadline is drawing nearer, and if we’re going to have any chance of making our goal, we need those of you who’ve never pitched in before to join the ranks of MoJo donors.

We simply can’t afford to come up short. There is no cushion in our razor-thin budget—no backup, no alternative sources of revenue to balance our books. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the fierce journalism we do. That’s why we need you to show up for us right now.

payment methods

OUR DEADLINE MATH PROBLEM

It’s risky, but also unavoidable: A full one-third of the dollars that we need to pay for the journalism you rely on has to get raised in December. A good December means our newsroom is fully staffed, well-resourced, and on the beat. A bad one portends budget trouble and hard choices.

The December 31 deadline is drawing nearer, and if we’re going to have any chance of making our goal, we need those of you who’ve never pitched in before to join the ranks of MoJo donors.

We simply can’t afford to come up short. There is no cushion in our razor-thin budget—no backup, no alternative sources of revenue to balance our books. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the fierce journalism we do. That’s why we need you to show up for us right now.

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