February 4, 2020

New Podcast Episode: What the Iowa Caucus Debacle Means

“Why are we doing it this way? Isn’t there a better way?”

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We’re putting out the latest edition of the Mother Jones Podcast a little bit early this week in order to bring you the very latest from Iowa, where Democratic officials are still scrambling to tabulate final results from the Monday night vote, blaming “inconsistencies” in the reporting data. Meanwhile, precinct-based volunteers running the contest on the ground slammed the party’s reporting app and said even calling in on the phones was causing problems. Officials have said they will begin to release partial voting data later this evening.

Senior reporter Tim Murphy has been criss-crossing Iowa for Mother Jones, and in this show we’ll take you right there, to his rental car, for his immediate reaction and to hear what voters are telling him about this headache-inducing vote.

You’ll also hear from our voting rights reporter (and Iowa native) Ari Berman, who analyzes what the debacle foretells for voting in America in 2020. And while we wait to assess the final votes, Micah Cohen, the managing editor of FiveThirtyEight, examines the trends as election season gets underway.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

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