August 6, 2016

BREAKING NEWS! Republican Presidential Candidate Endorses Republican Congressional Candidate

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I could have chosen just about any newspaper for this, but here’s the Washington Post last night:

Drink this in: it’s front-page news that the Republican candidate for president has endorsed the Republican Speaker of the House for reelection. Front. Page. News. The New York Times says Trump did it in an effort to “heal” a “party rift.” If so, Trump sure was dragged kicking and screaming into it. He read off his endorsement with all the enthusiasm of a Cultural Revolution dissident reading a confession of his counter-revolutionary deviations to his fellow reeducation campmates.

Anyway, Hillary Clinton also got a tiny bit of press on Friday for once again bobbling her claim that James Comey kinda sorta exonerated her in Emailgate. But the operative word here is “tiny.” It might have been a bigger deal if everyone hadn’t been so busy writing about the latest episode of the Trump telenovela. And Paul Ryan is going to win regardless.

Bottom line: Trump says he’s the guy who’s going to win so much we’ll all get tired of winning. But he lost the news cycle completely on Friday for no reason and no gain, just so he could indulge yet another trivial personal feud. Nice work.

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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.

payment methods

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