May 7, 2007

How Come Obama MySpace Page Creator Doesn’t Have a Lawyer?

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As Josh writes here, there has been quite the flurry over the changing of hands (from young paralegal and diehard supporter to Obama’s official campaign staff) of the unofficial, yet official-looking, 160,000 friend-boasting Barack Obama MySpace page. When the scandal blew up, there was talk that the 160,000 MySpace friends Joe Anthony, said diehard supporter, rallied together were theoretically worth a bundle of cash, and therefore all moral questions aside, the Obama campaign should pay up. Micah Sifry, founder of techPresident, (a site that monitors campaigns’ web strategies) noted on the site:

Care2, the massive progressive email list vendor, charges about $1 per email address that they generate for a campaign.

But like Sifry points out, Anthony could not have generated this large number of members if it weren’t for Obama’s success and charisma, so it’s not like he could expect to make $160,000 plus, but I’m betting, if he’d played his cards right, he could’ve raked in some dough. I mean, these campaigns pay media consultants big money to gather supporters the way Anthony did. Apparently, though, contrary to what Obama’s campaign staff were claiming — that he was just looking for a “big payday” — Anthony doesn’t seem to be after money at all. Sifry writes on Friday:

Anthony is pondering donating the url over to a non-profit group, or trying to continue working with the community gathered around the site to make it into a kind of clearinghouse or forum on the presidential candidates in general.

He is also still planning to vote for Obama!? Alright, so, I know I should feel warm and fuzzy about this, but instead, I’m scratching my head. This guy could have made some money — at the very least, he could have more adamantly demanded some compensation for his 2.5 year-long (Anthony maintained the page for 2.5 years) labor of love. Why didn’t he? Are we really seeing loyalty to the Democratic movement trump selfish desires, did he just give up or did he not have the right counsel? He’s a paralegal, right? Where were all his lawyer friends?

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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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