October 31, 2009

Pundit Watch

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Good news!  The Washington Post has picked the ten finalists in its “America’s Next Great Pundit” contest.  I know you don’t have time to read them all, so I’ll summarize:

Richter: Bring back the Office of Technology Assessment.
Haber: Where I come from, five plus one equals eight.  What’s more, Nevada will both lose and gain a congressional seat after the 2010 census.
Martin: These days, everybody wants it all.  Also: my dad is driving my mother crazy.
Jackson: Barack Obama needs to stop whining.  Bush 43 wasn’t so bad.
Gyamfi: Cable news is stupid.
Huffman: I want to be the next Dave Barry.
Esper: Healthcare is an important issue.
Khalil: Surprise! Arab-Americans watch Fox News.
Khan: Women like to yak, and Obama should capitalize on this.

I know what you’re thinking: this is only nine columnists.  What’s the deal?  Answer: there’s a tenth, but for some reason her column isn’t up yet.  Not sure why.

By the way, the ten winners include a Nobel Prize winner, a Bush 43 assistant secretary of commerce (guess which one), a senior correspondent for the American Prospect, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, a former researcher at the Kennedy School of Government, an Atlantic Media fellow, and a small-town newspaper editor.  Not exactly a crowd of just plain folks.  It might have been more fun to read the other 4,790 entries.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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