October 23, 2007

Tuesday? Ensues Music News Day

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


mojo-photo-news1023.jpg

  • Police in England shut down today what they called “the primary source worldwide” for illegal, prerelease music downloads. The invitation-only “OiNK” site turned out to be run by a 24-year-old dude in Middlesbrough, northeast England. Look, they caught the kid in his bathrobe:

    OiNK’s servers in Amsterdam were shut down as well, but here’s an OiNK memorial site if you’re feeling sad.

  • Def Jam chairman Antonio “L.A.” Reid confirmed his support for Nas after the rapper announced his new album would be called Nigger, saying “Anything Nas wants to do, I stand beside him.” The Rev. Al Sharpton, on the other hand, condemned the choice, saying “We do not need to be degrading ourselves… we get degraded enough.”

  • Lance Bass describes life in the closet during his years in ‘NSYNC to MTV News, saying he had people close to him sign non-disclosure agreements, and that the band’s management and publicists didn’t advise him against coming out, because, he says, even they didn’t know. Huh.

  • The BBC has been criticized for allowing a racist remark by Iggy Pop to go uncensored and unacknowledged during the network’s live broadcast from Glastonbury in June. Pop told a story about visiting “Paki shops” in Camden, using a term that the BBC said has now passed out of “polite usage.”

    • 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.

    payment methods

    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.

    payment methods

    We Recommend

    Latest

    Sign up for our free newsletter

    Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

    Get our award-winning magazine

    Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

    Subscribe

    Support our journalism

    Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

    Donate