A (Partial) History of the Blog

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This week NPR posted Timeline: The Life of the Blog, a history of the blog as we know it today.

It’s a fun trajectory to ponder, from the formation of the Internet’s oldest online communities in 1979 to the launch of Cleveland’s community network for residents, Freenet, in 1986, to the emergence of homepages and online diaries in 1994—and beyond.

The timeline includes the birth of podcasting, and it also chronicles blogs’ effect on political campaigns, but it does not explain how the blogosphere has changed journalism.

I mean, what about bloggers getting paid to link to business’ websites but not telling their readers? What about the trend of downsizing newspapers creating blogs to help axed staffers find work elsewhere? Let’s not forget the bloggers who cut and paste other people’s content and claim it as their own reporting work, or the newspapers that get half of their content from bloggers instead of trained reporters—and pay exponentially less money (or no money) for it.

I’m all for the blog. I’ve blogged for pay and blogged for free, and had fun both ways. But if we’re going to tally the high points of this medium, let’s not forget the lows, either.

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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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