March 27, 2014

Sponsored Content Really Not a Big Deal, Folks

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Earlier today Josh Marshall announced that TPM had launched a new section called “IdeaLab: Impact,” sponsored by PhRMA, the famously ubiquitous pharmaceutical industry lobby. Henry Farrell was distinctly unimpressed by the news:

In that spirit, I’d like to introduce a very cool new non-sponsored section myself, “Bullshit Lab: Impact,” focused on the very cool ways in which PhRMA lobbying is affecting real human lives and impacting people and communities living on the margins of global wealth and on the margins of the technological transformations. Except losing the “impacting,” since it isn’t a verb ever seen outside corporate press releases. How, for example, is PhRMA lobbying advancing the ball on shoving insanely demanding requirements into international trade agreements? What are the impactful ways in which PhRMA is impacting high drug prices? What are the cutting edge techniques in which PhRMA is pushing back on patent reform for AIDS drugs in South Africa….Feel free to treat this post’s comments sections as an opportunity to provide further examples, and unleash the real world impacts of innovative lobbying innovations!!

Sponsored content is all the rage these days, so this was probably inevitable. In fact, I was just reading about it the other day on my Dell Venue 11 tablet. I had just gotten back from Target, which was having a sale on DiGiorno frozen pizzas, and hopped onto Internet Explorer while I waited for the pizza to heat up in my Breville toaster oven. I wanted to read about NYT Now, a “compelling new iPhone® app with quick summaries and updates of top stories from our editors” that the Times announced a couple of weeks ago at South By Southwest Interactive. I found a few blurbs via Google News, but I still want to know more. It sounds exciting! I wonder if I’ll be able to read it on the HTC One Android phone I’m planning to buy from T-Mobile?

Anyway, like I said, the whole sponsored content thing is probably inevitable, but I doubt it has much actual effect on what journalists choose to write about. Nothing to get worked up about, Henry.

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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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