The Incredible Shrinking News Media

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The San Jose Mercury News recently launched yet another round of editorial cuts — This makes three in just the last 18 months, a cut of nearly 17 percent that will leave the paper with 200 newsroom positions, down from a peak of 400 just seven years ago.

With the San Francisco Chronicle’s recent announcement of its own staff slicing, coupled with major regional media consolidation, the Bay Area is starting to feel like the incredible shrinking news area.

But the Bay Area is not a case in isolation. Media consolidation is plaguing media outlets across the nation. In our March/April 2007 issue, Mother Jones found that equity-chasing investors and the FCC are key players in the incredibly expanding media mess. Wall Street, the Bush Administration and technology are all in the mix, too.

—Gary Moskowitz

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

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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.

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