September 21, 2007

Friday a Viable Day for Music News

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Johnny Rotten

  • John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, says some pretty silly stuff. In an interview yesterday on the UK’s Virgin Radio, the Sex Pistols and Public Image Limited frontman called Sting a “soggy old dead carcass,” said that Amy Winehouse doesn’t have “much going on in her head,” and that the music industry is “disgusting.” Actually, wait a minute, this stuff isn’t silly, these are just facts. Where’s the outlandish punk-rock spirit, Johnny? When did you become Tom Brokaw?

  • Jay-Z‘s new single, “Blue Magic,” gets played on the radio, ends up on the intertubes.

  • UK combo Keane follows Coldplay‘s lead in the “drum up interest in our new album by announcing it’s influenced by something incongruous that people actually like” sweepstakes, saying rapper Dr. Dre may influence their new album. Drummer Richard Hughes posted on the band’s website that “there’s a lot of interesting stuff coming out of America … I’ve been listening to people like Dr. Dre for a long time… we’re going to try and do something different.”

  • Possibly my most favoritest headline in the history of news reporting: “Nickelback In No Rush to Make New Album.” You guys just relax, preferrably in a country without recording studios.
    •

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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.

    payment methods

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