February 20, 2011

The Sunday Morning Shutout

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A couple of years ago Pew Research surveyed news coverage of the economy during the first half of 2009. Who drove stories? Who got quoted in stories? The answer was pretty much what you’d expect: the president, the White House, business leaders, academics, politicians, and ordinary citizens. Do you notice anyone missing from this list? Pew did:

One subset of the American workforce was virtually shut out of the coverage entirely. Representatives of organized labor unions were sources in a mere 2% of all the economy stories studied.

But that was reporting about a financial crisis. Surely things would be different if the story dominating the news was specifically about a state governor’s attempt to gut a union and the union’s attempt to fight back? Eddie Vale, AFL-CIO political communications director, sets us straight:

While we appreciate coverage of this impt issue quite odd not a single union member or officer invited on any of the Sunday shows

Actually, not so odd at all. In fact, it’s par for the course. Unless it’s a story about how unions are ruining American education or destroying state pension funds, today’s press isn’t much interested in what they have to say.

More about this on Tuesday morning, when my piece in the current issue of MoJo about the decline of unions and the not-so-coincidental decline of American liberalism goes online.

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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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