March/April 2007 Issue

Can Shopping Make You Happy?

From the looks of these people, no.

    Photo Essay by Brian Ulrich


In 2001, citizens were encouraged to take to the malls to boost the US economy through shopping, thereby equating consumerism with patriotism. The Copia project, a direct response to that advice, is a long-term photographic examination of the peculiarities and complexities of the consumer-dominated culture in which we live.

Flushing, NY, 2004
 

Black River Falls, Wisconsin, 2006
 

Edinburgh, UK, 2003
 

Chicago, IL, 2003
 

Gurnee, IL, 2003
 

Edinburgh, UK, 2003
 

Chicago, IL, 2003
 

Gurnee, IL, 2003
 

Untitled, Thrift, 2006
 

Chicago, IL, 2003
 

Cleveland, OH, 2003
 

Gurnee, IL, 2005
 

Gurnee, IL, 2005
 

Lyndhurst, OH, 2004
 

Chicago, IL, 2003
 

Medford, NY, 2003
 

Granger, IN, 2003
 

Untitled, Thrift, 2006
 

Untitled, Thrift, 2006
 

Kenosha, WI, 2003

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist 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 need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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