August 16, 2007

Hurry Up and Wait for New Radiohead

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Everybody’s favorite happy-go-lucky UK boy band has delayed the release of their seventh album until 2008, reports NME. Radiohead have not released an album since 2003’s Hail to the Thief. The band have been working on new material (including a recent stint in the studio in New York), but apparently forgot they left their label EMI after Thief and, gee, it’s kind of hard to release an album without a label. Actually, no, they didn’t forget, they just stopped caring:

Radiohead’s management dismissed speculation over recent months that Warner Music was poised to secure the band’s signature. “The band [is] not looking for a record company in any way, shape or form,” the representative says. “They are out of a contract, but they’re not actively looking for another one. They’re getting on with doing what they do.”

Which is, I guess, make music nobody can hear, except in tiny little clips on a confusing website that has a tendency to lock up your computer. (Seriously.) Please, guys, we know you’re annoyed with the Industry. We’re all annoyed with the Industry. But that’s all the more reason to speed your cathartic tunes to us! Malaise! Besides, the world might end before 2008!! Isn’t that what Kid A is about?!

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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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