September 6, 2016

Murder Is Down in New York City

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Here’s the latest from the New York Police Department:

That’s fewer murders, pal. Don’t let Twitter be an excuse for bad grammar. Our kids look up to you.

Originally, I was going to post this to show that, in fact, we’re probably not in the middle of a nationwide crime wave caused by the “Ferguson Effect.” Or if we are, it was short lived. But we won’t know that for a while.

However, when I heard about this I headed over to the NYPD website to see if they had a press release with more information. Not only did they not have such a thing, it turns out they don’t even issue press releases anymore except for their weekly traffic advisory. I originally heard about the crime stats from a reporter on Twitter who said he had received an email. On the NYPD site, I was informed that I could download their official app (iPhone or Android). Or I could scroll through their Twitter feed. Or I could listen to a podcast.

That’s it. Apparently the era of the press release is over, and the rest of us just don’t know it yet. That’s too bad. It may be old fashioned, but it does allow room for a wee bit more detail than a tweet.

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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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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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