Net Neutrality: The Dead Trees Version

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On the scale of giant social troubles, this one won’t register, but as a breathtaking example of corporate influence and regulatory cronyism, it can’t be beat.

After almost a year of hearings, last month the Bush-appointed US Postal Service Board of Governors tossed out their own staff recommendations and at the last minute approved a 758-page plan submitted by Time Warner that will increase mailing costs between 18 and 30 percent a year for small-circulation magazines like Mother Jones, while postal costs for the big guys – Time, Newsweek, People – will actually go down. The Board of Guvs opened up their decision to public comment for a grand total of 8 days, and then scheduled it to go into effect this coming July.

Consider this the print-side version of the fight over net neutrality.

America’s founders understood that the First Amendment wasn’t worth much without a postal system that encouraged broad public participation in the public debate. To ensure that a diversity of viewpoints were available to “the whole mass of the people,” they created affordable postal rates that gave smaller political journals a voice. The Time Warner rate increase reverses this egalitarian ideal.

Our friends at Free Press have taken the lead in organizing a campaign to put the brakes on this deal. In the odd-bedfellows department, we’ve signed onto a publishers letter to the Postal Service Board of Governors along with many other independent magazines, both conservative and progressive, from The Nation and The New Republic to The Weekly Standard and American Spectator.

But it will take more than a letter. The Postal Service Board of Governors will be taking comments until Monday, April 23rd; you can learn more, or let your opinion be known, via a special site set up by Free Press. Or just click on the “Stop The Post Office” postage stamp over there on the right hand side of this page.

Disclosure: Mother Jones, along with Free Press, is involved in a project called The Media Consortium, a network of 36 independent journalism-based organizations that are working together to amplify our collective voice.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

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It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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