July 2, 2009

Chart of the Day

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From Calculated Risk, here’s a chart incorporating today’s bad unemployment news.  We’re now clearly in the worst slump since the Great Depression, and by far the worst slump in the past 50 years.  And if that’s still not bad enough news for you, keep in mind that we’re in good shape compared to Europe and China.  If and when another shoe drops (ARM resets? Eastern European defaults? a big bank collapse? an oil price spike?), it could be 2008 all over again.

On the bright side, the Wall Street Journal reports that banker pay has rebounded and is now back up to bubblicious 2007 levels.  It’s good to see that not everyone is suffering.

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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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