May 11, 2010

Kate Sheppard Live-Tweets the #BPhearing

BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig on fire. | Department of Energy (<a href="http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml">Government Work</a>).

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Executives from three of the companies in charge of operations at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig are on the hot seat in the Senate today. The rig exploded on April 20 and continues to leak hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

BP America president and chairman Lamar McKay, Transocean CEO Steven Newman, and Halliburton chief health, safety and environmental officer Tim Probert will testify before both the Energy and Natural Resources and Environment and Public Works committees on Tuesday. Mother Jones environmental reporter Kate Sheppard is live-Tweeting the hearings:

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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.

payment methods

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