September 11, 2020

Fact of the Day: COVID-19 Deaths Around the World

Every morning I post the current rate of COVID-19 deaths in eight different countries, so why am I posting this yet again today? Because I still get periodic complaints that I’m misleading people by using a different scale for each country. So here’s what it looks like using the same scale for everyone:

What do you think? The problem I have with this is that my charts are pretty small, and countries like Germany and Canada barely show up if you use the same scale that works fine for, say, France. And personally, I don’t consider it all that onerous to expect people to look at the y-axis in a series of charts.

But maybe it is onerous. Not everyone is a chart nerd, after all. So perhaps tomorrow I’ll try using a standard scale for all eight charts to see what it looks like. Weekends are made for experiments, right?

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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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