This is the Newport Beach coast a little before dusk. In the background, 26 miles across the sea, is Catalina Island. The buildings are part of Fashion Island, a mixed shopping/commercial development.

I don’t know that this is a great picture, but I’m putting it up to force myself to stretch a bit. As I’m sure you’ve all figured out, I have a strong preference for sharp, color-saturated images. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I should be more open to the variety of possibilities inherent in movement, focus, and different color palettes. I don’t think pictures like this will become a regular thing—my taste is still my taste—but they might become slightly more frequent.

March 9, 2019 — Lake Forest, California

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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.”

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