October 31, 2010

Top Ten Lists

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Here’s a Twitter conversation from last night:

@kdrum: @ebertchicago’s “Why I Loathe Top 10 Film Lists” doesn’t actually say a word about why he loathes Top Ten lists. http://ow.ly/323Z8

@RemoteClancy: re: @ebertchicago & Top 10 lists. Not a word, just 900 of them. Re-read his response to ‘Best in Film’ for clearest reason.

I guess you’ll have to click the link and decide for yourself who’s right. As near as I can tell, Roger Ebert told us why he doesn’t like being asked to participate in creating Top Ten lists for free, but that’s a whole different question than why he loathes Top Ten lists in general. I realize he didn’t write the headline for the piece, but I still want to know: why does he loathe Top Ten lists? He does seem to, but there’s really no explanation given. Even for a serious critic, it seems like it might be sort of a fun exercise.

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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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