August 17, 2010

BPCares for Sale

Image courtesy of <a href="http://www.streetgiant.bigcartel.com/product/bp-cares-green">StreetGiant</a>.

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I’ve been getting a lot of emails from Joseph Rollins, a guy in North Carolina who owns “BP Cares” and related web domains shortly after the oil spill. And I do mean all of them:

www.bpcares.com
www.bpcares.net
www.bpcares.org
www.bpcares.info
www.bpcares.us
www.bpcares.biz
www.bpcare.net
www.bpcare.org
www.bpcare.info
www.bpcare.biz
www.bpcare.us

Rollins has put them up for sale, asking for $68,000 for all 11 domains. He says he’ll give half of the proceeds to Gulf coast charities. He also says that he wants to sell them to someone other than BP, as he thinks the oil giant has been trying to buy them up:

Since the situation in the Gulf, I have received hundreds of calls per week from individuals, groups and organizations indicating there interest in acquiring the domains. I have received inquiries from individuals claiming to be working on behalf of BP who were very interested in acquiring the domains. I have communicated with BP. BP may be using individuals, groups and organizations to acquire the domains from me.”

I’m not endorsing the dollar figure he wants for the sites, but considering all the fun BPglobalPR and BPCares have been having with this meme on Twitter (and all the work BP has done to drive viewers to their site rather than anything critical of the company), the sites could be an interesting investment. His phone is 803-665-6348 or you can email at jrollins005@carolina.rr.com.

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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.

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