Maybe You Should Call Someone

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This press release from Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is made of win:

Congressman Barney Frank today responded to a misinformed partisan attack by the Massachusetts Republican Party, in which the GOP criticized Frank for missing a procedural vote to deny funding for ACORN.

Frank has missed the vote because he was attending the Medal of Honor ceremony for Sergeant First Class Jared Monti of Raynam, which was held yesterday afternoon at the White House.  Monti received the honor posthumously for his heroic actions in battle in Afghanistan.

This morning, the Wall Street Journal printed an editorial harshly criticizing Frank for missing the vote.  The Massachusetts Republican Party echoed the Journal’s attack in a release sent to the press this afternoon. 

Neither the Wall Street Journal nor the Massachusetts GOP called Frank’s office for explanation, nor did they note that Frank was at the ceremony despite the fact that it had been widely reported in the press.

Frank expressed deep disappointment that some would use his absence for partisan political purposes.  “I find it deeply disturbing that the people who loudly criticized me in print did not even call my office to ask me about the situation.  I would like to offer them the courtesy which they refused to offer me – I will ask their opinion.  What do they think I should have done – attend the Medal of Honor ceremony, or a vote?”

It’s time for a blogger ethics panel.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

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