On Thursday, Republicans filibustered a bill to create a $7 billion fund for 9/11 first responders who are experiencing health problems as a result of their work. Eric Boehlert is unhappy with the press coverage:

The fact that the 9/11-related legislation was defeated was news. Period. The fact that it was defeated as part of the larger Republican strategy to tie the Senate in knots made yesterday’s vote even more newsworthy. But not at ABC, CBS or NBC. Last night, all three evening newscasts failed to report on the fact that Republicans had voted down a previously bipartisan bill designed to provide medical coverage for Sept. 11 emergency workers. At the major networks, that development was not considered newsworthy.

This is a pretty good demonstration of the difference between the liberal and conservative media machines. The reason the networks didn’t bother reporting this is because everyone knew from the start that Republicans weren’t going to vote for the 9/11 bill before the tax deal had cleared the Senate, so bringing it up for a vote was just political theater. And the evening newscasts don’t generally cover that kind of stuff.

So why do they often cover it when the shoe is on the other foot? Because conservatives have the ability to turn political theater into real news. Once the Rush/Drudge/Fox machine gets rolling, there’s genuine outrage all over the country. And that’s what eventually gets reported.

For better or worse, liberals don’t have this. In the case of the 9/11 bill, there was no ginned up outrage around the country, no tea party rallies, no congressional switchboard meltdowns, no sense that wow, people are really upset about this. The basic news may be the same when both sides do this, but the megaphone is completely different.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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