Mother Jones Beats Salon at Trivia Showdown, Begins Beautiful Friendship

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It began with a tweet.

Some fighting words were exchanged.


And last night, after much online trashtalking, the long-awaited trivia battle between the staffs of Salon and Mother Jones took place deep in the heart of San Francisco. The intensity was palpable, as the two teams wrestled over the most important issues of our time, like how many bones are in a baby’s body at birth? And what was 1885 Biff’s nickname in Back to the Future III?

 Team MoJoTeam MoJo
Team SalonTeam Salon
Also, there may or may not have been some livetweeting going on from across the room.

Yes, muckrakers are also nerds.Yes, muckrakers are also nerds.

Long story short, your very own hellraisers triumphed. 60-51. Yes, it’s true. We hippies store extra knowledge in our leg hair.

Salon was a great sport, and their staffers were kind enough to present us with an award, a fancy Ralph Waldo Emerson quote emblazoned with a tiny Salon logo. We tried to understand the meaning of this quote paired with the tiny logo, but the sweet taste of victory and/or malt beverages distracted us from Chris‘ full explanation.

Thank you, we accept.Thank you, we accept.
In any case, great fun was had by all. We met some cool people. We succeeded in wrenching useless information from our brains. And we won an award. It is now proudly displayed in our conference room, nestled among, you know, some other awards.

 

Thanks to everyone for showing up, and keep those trivia hats at the ready. We’re still scanning the San Francisco media horizon for the next poor, unsuspecting publication to defeat.

P.S. Salon has courageously requested a rematch. The liberal elite, what can I say, they’re just suckers for pain.

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.

payment methods

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.

payment methods

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