January 18, 2009

Team Obama

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TEAM OBAMA….The New York Times magazine’s main feature this week is a portrait gallery of Obama people, ranging all the way from superstars like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton to people you’ve probably never heard of, like Marvin Nicholson (White House trip director) and Mark Lippert (NSC chief of staff). I’ll confess that the (by now) ancient trope of taking a series of stark, harshly lit photos against a plain background leaves me a little cold, and I guess it left photographer Nadav Kander a little cold too because he decided to try to add something more to the shots:

We asked them to bring an item that would tell us a bit more about themselves and got a whole variation of things. The reason for doing it was that when you omit the context of time and place from a photograph, i.e. photographing them on a white background, the tiniest gestures really show.

So: what would you bring if you were asked to be part of this rogue’s gallery? My obvious choice would be a cat, but that’s probably not too practical. Maybe a rolled up copy of Mother Jones? A USC baseball cap? An orange? A laptop computer?

My favorite photograph is the one of Peter Orszag gloriously arrayed in full nerd pack. Do you think this is standard dress for him? Or did he ham it up a bit for the photographer?

My other favorite is Timothy Geithner, who, oddly enough given his background and reputation, seems to really know how to hold a camera’s attention. That might come in handy during his confirmation hearing.

In other photos, Larry Summers looks like he’s thinking “Just press the damn shutter button already.” Samantha Power looks mesmerizing. Tom Daschle looks surprisingly friendly. David Axelrod looks like your favorite uncle. Ellen Moran looks like a wax replica. James Clyburn looks like he just won the lottery. Mark Lippert and James Jones look like they’re in a police lineup. Desirée Rogers looks like she’s stunning and she knows it. Carol Browner looks remarkably chic for a policy wonk. Ken Salazar looks like a mark on Leverage. Jim Messina looks like this is the first time in his life that he’s ever had to wear a suit. Eric Shinseki looks like a general, dammit. Hilda Solis looks pensive and sad.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ON MOTHER JONES' FINANCES

We need to start being more upfront about how hard it is keeping a newsroom like Mother Jones afloat these days.

Because it is, and because we're fresh off finishing a fiscal year, on June 30, that came up a bit short of where we needed to be. And this next one simply has to be a year of growth—particularly for donations from online readers to help counter the brutal economics of journalism right now.

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Urgent, for sure. But it's not all doom and gloom!

Because over the challenging last year, and thanks to feedback from readers, we've started to see a better way to go about asking you to support our work: Level-headedly communicating the urgency of hitting our fundraising goals, being transparent about our finances, challenges, and opportunities, and explaining how being funded primarily by donations big and small, from ordinary (and extraordinary!) people like you, is the thing that lets us do the type of journalism you look to Mother Jones for—that is so very much needed right now.

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There's more about our finances in "News Never Pays," or "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," and we'll have details about the year ahead for you soon. But we already know this: The fundraising for our next deadline, $350,000 by the time September 30 rolls around, has to start now, and it has to be stronger than normal so that we don't fall behind and risk coming up short again.

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