March 28, 2020

The Coronavirus Pandemic Won’t Change Anything Forever

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I keep seeing articles about how the coronavirus pandemic is going to change things forever. Dating will be changed forever. Book publishing will be changed forever. Comic books will be changed forever. Bars and restaurants will be changed forever. Hollywood will be changed forever. Conventions will be changed forever. Remote work will be changed forever. Journalism will be changed forever. Vacations will be changed forever.

I’m going to go out on a limb here: I don’t think much of anything will be changed forever and I wish people would stop saying so based on two whole weeks of practicing isolation and social distancing.¹ All it does is scare people even more just for the sake of being able to write a provocative op-ed. If this is the best you can do, maybe you should just stop writing for the duration.

¹Actually, one week, and that’s only in California, which started on March 21. For most of the rest of you, it’s only been four or five days.

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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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