February 8, 2019

A Few Quick Opinions

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I’ve gotten requests for my take on several things that I don’t really have a full post in me about. So here’s a quickie summary instead:

  • Virginia: Northam should go and Fairfax should go, but Herring should stay. He fessed up, explained what happened, and apologized. My view is that this is sufficient for the level of offense at issue.
  • Abramson: I don’t personally consider a few bits of quasi-plagiarism at the paragraph level to be any big deal in a book-length work. So I don’t care about what Jill Abramson did.
  • The border: Unlike Nancy Pelosi, I don’t have a big problem with building bits and pieces of a southern border wall. My biggest objection is that I think it’s a waste of money, but it would hardly be the first time money has been wasted in search of a political deal. So yes, I’d support some kind of compromise deal with Trump.
  • Tips: Delivery companies need to stop stealing their drivers’ tips. This is not rocket science.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

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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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