December 15, 2010

Turning Down the Volume

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What is money? What is — hold on a second. Who cares? The White House press office has emailed to tell me that President Obama just signed a new law:

S. 2847, the “Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation or the “CALM Act,” which requires the Federal Communications Commission to prescribe a regulation limiting the volume of audio on commercials transmitted by television broadcast stations, cable operators, and other multichannel video programming distributors.

IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME. Oops. Sorry about that. Anyway, assuming that the FCC adopts a decent rule, this is good news. And it only took 40 years!

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DECEMBER IS MAKE OR BREAK

A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. That’s risky, because a strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength—but a weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

The December 31 deadline is closing in fast. To reach our $400,000 goal, we need readers who’ve never given before to join the ranks of MoJo donors. And we need our steadfast supporters to give again—any amount today.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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