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Newspapers have been dropping like flies recently, and because of that a lot of chatter in reporting circles these days revolves around the possibility that serious journalism in the future will mostly be done by nonprofits, funded by foundations and grants. Today the New York Times writes about a San Francisco-based magazine that’s followed that model for over 30 years:

Mother Jones has become a real-life laboratory for whether nonprofit journalism — a topic of the moment in mainstream news media circles — can withstand a deep recession.

….Back in the fall, when the economic downturn intensified, and the plight of print publications became more dire, Mother Jones suffered, despite its position of not being in it for the money. Advertising plummeted, down 23 percent in 2008, and some of the big donations the magazine depends on didn’t come through.

Actually, things are better than that makes it sound.  Advertising is a pretty small chunk of our revenue, and overall fundraising has stayed pretty strong, all things considered:

[Jay] Harris, the magazine’s publisher, said the company met its fund-raising targets last year, although before the economic turmoil in the fall the magazine thought it would exceed goals.

But small-time donations and subscriptions have held steady at Mother Jones, to the surprise of its editors, who figured that the downturn would have taken more of a toll and that the election of Barack Obama would have a negative effect on raising money for liberal causes.

About half of the magazine’s yearly revenue is from major grants and donations. The magazine often seeks donations for specific projects, as it did in recent years to staff its Washington bureau at a time when many news organizations had been scaling back there. The bureau opened in late 2007 with eight people.

The Times failed to note MoJo’s groundbreaking hiring of new blogging staff last year, but aside from that it’s a decent piece about one possible future for investigative journalism.  Namely, us.  Check it out.

(And you should subscribe!  Only 15 bucks for the first year.  Just click here.)

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

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