September 19, 2011

Big News in Ketchup City

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From the Wall Street Journal today:

In 2006, when activist investor Nelson Peltz battled Heinz for board seats, he pushed the company to make a number of changes, large and small, including developing easier-to-open ketchup packets.

This is in a story about — hey. Wait a second. Did I read that right? Back in 2006, a shareholder activist was demanding that Heinz develop an easier-to-open ketchup packet? Seriously? I guess shareholder activism isn’t what it used to be.

Anyway, Heinz has finally complied, introducing a ketchup packet that can be opened at one end if you want to squeeze out the ketchup, or the other end if you want to dip your food in ketchup. It’s also bigger than the old packets. I don’t like ketchup, myself, so I’m not blown away by this news. But maybe you will be.

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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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