Let Us Now Praise Bigger and Better Twitter

I feel like I should take a public position on any topic that gets sufficiently contentious, so here it is with no hemming and hawing: I think it’s a good idea to increase the Twitter limit to 280 characters.

There. I said it. And I’ll bet everyone will agree before long. Tweets will retain their character as very brief public communications, but the character increase will allow a little more breathing room. Even short thoughts can’t always be easily condensed to 140 characters.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

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