February 24, 2001

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Tuning out Channel One

So much for “Kill Your Television.” According to ADBUSTERS, two Ohio teenagers went to jail after refusing to watch Channel One, a television program (with commercials) that’s shown in schools across the United States. When DJ and Carlotta Maurer walked out of their classrooms to protest mandatory viewing of Channel One, the principal called them truants, and sent them to Wood County Juvenile Detention Center for the day.

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2/20 – Big oil’s big schemes Commercial Alert and Obligation, Inc., two groups that have been critical of Channel One’s programming, came to the Maurers’ defense. They wrote a letter to Ohio governor Bob Taft, asking him to remove Channel One from public schools. While the governor has yet to respond, the school in question is in negotiations with the Maurers, who said they have religious objections to television.

According to Primedia, Channel One’s parent company, shows like Channel One News and other “quality information and award-winning programming” from the company reach 8 million teenage viewers every school day.

Read the ADBUSTERS article here.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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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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