In a few short months, American voters will make what may be an epoch-shaping decision. But we have to wonder: how will the American people get the information they need in order to make this choice? With much of commercial journalism distorted by the pressure to show short term returns to investors, by the quest for larger audiences at lower cost, and by fecklessness in the face of political power, the need for independent journalism has never been more important.

Are We Better Off? A Mother Jones Special Series on The State of the Union will enliven the public debate about our future, and provide Americans with more of the facts they need for informed decisions and action. This year-long project aims to answer Ronald Reagan’s question of almost a quarter century ago: are we better off today than we were four years ago - and, adding to that - will we be better off four years from now?

The Mother Jones 100
Mother Jones magazine: Who's Better Off?
A real portrait of America: putting a human face on the data
The "Are We Better Off?" poll
Campaign 2004
Beyond the Choir: Outreach, PR, and Communications
How you can help

Who gives, who gets, and why: these are the questions behind the Mother Jones 100, our quadrennial survey of political money. Mother Jones does it again in 2004 with the Center for Responsive Politics, but with a twist: we are as interested in who’s not on the list as we are with who’s at the top of it. The reason? Campaign finance reforms put in place by McCain-Feingold re-routed the flow of big-money political giving into new streams, which aren’t picked up by official campaign finance reporting mechanisms.

Alongside the numbers, look for stories by:

• Chuck Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity on money and politics.


• Jody Enda, formerly the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Washington, DC reporter on why - with the exception of Manhattan’s Upper East Side - one Cincinnati zip code raises more money for the Republicans than any other in the nation.


• Mother Jones Washington editor Michael Scherer on the rise of the "527 organization" as the soft-money alternative. In September, we’ll update the story with new data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Our May/June 2004 issue, Who's Better Off? A Special Report on the State of the Union, is entirely devoted to Ronald Reagan’s question. Editor-in-Chief Roger Cohn and his editorial staff offer readers provocative, forward-looking articles that capture where the country is four years after George W. Bush took office -- and what kind of future we're moving toward. The feature line-up includes:

• Bill McKibben on "Finding Uncommon Ground," a look at how we have become a hyper-individualistic nation which has lost a sense of the common good.


• Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis reports on the battle over civil liberties in the Courts, in Congress, and in the presidential election. The outcome could lead to a fundamental rethinking of our democracy.


• David Rieff of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine and Atlantic Monthly, argues that the invasion of Iraq may just may be the "last neoconservative war."


• Clyde Prestowitz, a former Reagan administration official, assesses the failure of the Bush administration’s foreign policy from an insider’s perspective.


• Mother Jones Washington editor Michael Scherer asks why it is we’re hearing about so many abuses of the contracts in Iraq these days, and uncovers a disturbing answer: not only is government work being handed over to private firms, but now private contractors are even being hired to police the work done by other contractors.


• Writer David Goodman reports from Oregon on the decline of the nation’s education system as successive waves of tax cuts starve schools of funds.


• Arthur Allen, a contributing writer for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, reports from a Philadelphia hospital struggling with the legacy of years of budget cuts and short-sighted decisions about the state of health care.

There’s lots more in the issue, including contributions from writers such as Dave Eggers, George Packer, and Debra Dickerson -- plus plenty of reader-friendly graphics, charts and graphs to bring the stories alive.

With the Economic Policy Institute, MotherJones.com takes a closer look at federal data to draw an objective picture of how Americans are doing these days. Along with the numbers, look for a major overview story on the data and in-depth profiles of individuals, families and communities that best illustrate the trends that emerge from the data.

Mother Jones is commissioning Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research to conduct a survey of the American public to reveal how real people are feeling about their well-being. Do we feel more or less secure in our jobs than four years ago? More or less confident about what the future holds for our children? Do our communities feel more or less safe than four years ago? Are our finances better or worse than a few years ago? The poll findings will be released in late June or early July 2004 – a crucial time in this presidential election year for candidates to address the issues that matter most.

American voters don’t need more news reporting that treats the presidential election as if it were a horse race. What we need is thoughtful journalism that helps provide insight into the deeper and broader context in which the campaign is being run. We need reporting that we can depend on to cover the issues the candidates are not talking about, as well as stories the rest of the media won’t touch. This is Mother Jones’ strength - and the approach we will take in covering the presidential campaign with monthly columns from the first spring primary to Election Day in November, and with daily reports from the conventions in Boston and New York.

If the goal of this project is to enliven the public debate about the future of our nation, outreach is absolutely essential to its success. Right now, Mother Jones magazine and MotherJones.com consistently reach almost 900,000 readers each month - and last fall our special package on the Bush administration’s attack on the environment reached over 10 million people- but this isn’t anywhere near enough in this crucial election year.

We want to reach 30 million people with Are We Better Off? – and we know we can do it. We’ve put more Mother Jones resources into public relations, outreach, and strategic communications than ever before. Through a smart mix of aggressively placing our stories in national and regional print and electronic media outlets, booking our writers and editors on radio and television talk shows nationwide, distributing our work to key congressional representatives and decision-shapers, and partnering with other public interest organizations, Mother Jones is going to continue to speak truth to power this election year.

We can do all this and more – but only if you’ll help.

As someone who recognizes the strength of investigative journalism, and the need for fearless independent media, we’re depending on your support. Make a donation to the Mother Jones Investigative Fund today and get these stories out to millions of Americans who are hungry for honest, in-depth reporting.

To make a tax-deductible contribution, please click here.