August 4, 2009

Does Beer Pong Need Scare Quotes?

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Really, Associated Press? From a story about stickers that are attached to “nuisance” houses in Narraganset, Rhode Island:

The police, meanwhile, have continued to distribute the stickers while the court case continues, including one last month for an underage keg party involving a game of “beer pong.”

Does beer pong really require scare quotes? I asked our esteemed copy editor, Nicole McClelland. “Absolutely not,” she says. “Beer pong is totally legit, and therefore needs neither quotes nor introduction. It’s not in the dictionary yet, but soon, my friend, soon.”

There you have it. Come on now, AP.

 

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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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