Friday Cat Blogging – 16 December 2016

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It’s that time of year again—when we beg our readers for tax-deductible donations to support our work.

But we’ve never been too much into doing things the way they’ve always been done. Case in point: Clara and Monika’s new piece that argues for investigating Donald Trump—and supporting MoJo—includes this appraisal of the media:

“Why was it only now, well past the election, that Trump is being pushed to address how we would deal with banks to which he is in debt, or foreign leaders who have a say over his company’s projects? Simply put: Math. Advertising pays fractions of a penny per click, which means that publishers have to pump out buckets of fast, cheap content to make ends meet, and that leaves little opportunity for serious investigation.

….In normal times, right now we’d be in the middle of the kind of routine end-of-year fundraising drive many nonprofits do in December (“We need to raise $250,000 by December 31!”). But these aren’t normal times. So enough with the marketing pitches. None of us needs to be motivated by some arbitrary fundraising goal. Covering Trump, and what he represents, will take everything we’ve got.”

Yep. Here’s a small sample of my headlines (from this week alone!). If you think pieces like this matter, I hope you’ll pitch in a few bucks to help us do it.

  • NBC NEWS: Putin Personally Directed Anti-Clicking Hacking
  • No, the Senate Will Not “Heavily Vet” Trump’s Cabinet Nominees
  • Chart of the Day: Republicans Sure Are Warming Up to Vladimir Putin
  • Working Class Hero Donald Trump Sure Has Been Good For Wall Street
  • Russia Ran the Most Epic Ratfucking Operation in History This Year
  • How Putin Got His Pet Game Show Host Elected President
  • Here is Rex Tillerson’s Awesome Record at ExxonMobil

And now, as your reward for reading this far (and donating to MoJo), here is Hopper enjoying herself in the garden earlier this week. And don’t forget: today is also Beethoven’s birthday. Let’s all listen to the 7th Symphony.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

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