Bill O’Reilly vs…. John Sifton

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Last month, Daniel Schulman and I revealed that John Sifton and his private investigation firm, One World Research, were hired by the ACLU to obtain photographs of CIA interrogators for Guantanamo lawyers defending high-value terrorist suspects. Someone at Bill O’Reilly’s show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” evidently read the piece, because the Fox News Channel show sent a producer to Sifton’s house last week to ask questions about his work in an ambush-style interview:

Beyond O’Reilly’s aggressive tactics, two things stick out about this segment. First, it was great to see O’Reilly refer to our scoop—but rather aggravating that he didn’t credit us with the story. Also, O’Reilly refers to what Sifton did as an “illegal operation.” That’s far from clear. While the Justice Department is investigating Gitmo defense lawyers for showing the photos Sifton took to detainees, there’s no indication—so far—that Sifton himself is being investigated. And even if Sifton was under investigation, that wouldn’t be proof that what he did was “illegal.” Taking photographs of people in public places isn’t, generally, against the law—even if you know that they’re CIA officers. Nor is it necessarily illegal to research the identities of CIA officers. Anyway, you can read more about the operation here, and judge for yourself.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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