August 17, 2009

Reappointing Ben

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Video of my session at Netroots Nation doesn’t seem to be available anywhere, which means that I can’t watch it to see how it went.  However, I got this from a friend who watched it live:

I thought you might enjoy the attached screen capture.  You couldn’t see it, but throughout there were ads on the screen, most of which keyed off your name.  We got ads for Canon toner DRUMS and oil DRUMS and all sorts of musical DRUMS and don’t you just love the way “targeted” advertising works on the Internet?  I’m watching Kevin Drum so it follows that I might be in the market for a good oil drum.

Ain’t the intertubes great?  On a more substantive note, not a single one of the panelists was opposed to reappointing Ben Bernanke.  Not even Dean Baker!  Et tu, Dean?  This suggests to me that Bernanke is a shoo-in for winning a second term.  If you can’t even get a bunch of liberals at Netroots Nation to oppose him, what are the odds that anyone else is going to lead the fight?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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