Children’s magazine looks like an Army recruiting tool to some

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The latest issue of Cobblestone, a magazine for children ages 9 to 14, features on its cover a photo of a soldier in Iraq clutching a machine gun. Inside, there are articles on boot camp, careers in the Army, and a detailed description of the Army’s “awesome arsenal” of weapons.

The issue also contains a set of teachers’ guides, one of which suggests teachers invite a soldier, Army recruiter or veteran to the classroom to talk with students and to ask them if they would one day consider joining the Army. Another suggests that teachers assign students to write an essay about which Army career they would like to pursue, and how they would persuade the recruiter to place them in that career.

There have been about a dozen official complaints to Carus Publishing, whose officials say that they will consider these criticisms in formulating future issues of the magazine. A spokesman said the magazine planned the issue a couple of years ago, and that “It just happened to come out at a time when the country’s feelings are in a certain place” about the war in Iraq.

Cobblestone has a paid circulation of 30,000 and is distributed nationwide to schools and libraries.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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