September 14, 2011

Today in Deepwater Horizon Updates

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A report by the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement, says that everyone—BP, Halliburton, Transocean—is to blame for the April 2010 explosion that caused the second-largest oil spill ever and ruined a lot of lives along the Gulf Coast. The findings aren’t particularly surprising; a presidential commission reached the same conclusion earlier this year.

Also, miles of tar balls and tar mats have appeared on Louisiana beaches after a tropical storm churned them up. This is also not particularly surprising, since BP was doing such a totally awesome job of cleaning the oil up when it first spilled. Workers are being dispatched to take care of the new mess posthaste.

But this is news: A refreshing dose of honesty from BP, which last year was insisting, along with a weirdly and tragically complicit media, that the oil was all gone. Said BP spokesman Curtis Thomas, explaining why they already had so much manpower ready to deploy for cleanup: “We knew this was coming.”

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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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