Can We Please Put Away the Smelling Salts?

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Just in case I wasn’t crystal clear this morning, I want to double down on my view that NPR shouldn’t have fired Vivian Schiller over James O’Keefe’s latest video sting operation. First, though, here’s a quick summary reminder of what Ron Schiller (no relation) said:

The two actors clearly goad Schiller into making observations, most of which are made after Schiller explicitly takes off his “NPR hat” to give his personal opinion. For example, Schiller says there aren’t enough “educated, so-called elite” Americans, adding that public opinion is driven by “this very large uneducated part of the population.”

Of tea partyers, he adds: “I mean, basically they … believe in sort of white, middle-America, gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”

Here’s what I’d like to hear from more people: there was nothing wrong with Schiller saying this. Period. He’s a fundraiser, not a reporter. He’s allowed to have personal views. He’s allowed to express those views, even if they’re obnoxious or intemperate, and even if he’s doing it across the table from a potential donor. He did nothing wrong, and neither did his boss. He deserved, at most, a mild talking-to over this.

I can’t begin to tell you how tired I am of all the faux fainting couch nonsense we have to put up with these days from both left and right. People say stuff. They despise certain groups and certain people. They get passionate. If you cross a genuine line, that’s one thing. But I’m really weary of fairly ordinary political invective being routinely turned into a firing offense. It’s time for all of us to grow thicker skins and knock off this nonsense.

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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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