politicnewsbusterinsiderpostreview: This is always such a hard email to write.

Friday, 31 December 2021

This is always such a hard email to write.

MoJo Reader,

Oh good, you opened this email.

I know your inbox is probably full of "last chance to make a year-end donation and we still have a long way to go" emails. You're part of the Mother Jones community after all, so you care a great deal about the big issues we face as a nation that our team reports on, and I'm sure you're involved with a lot of great nonprofits who are asking for your support today.

I have an idea about that in a minute, but I'm glad you're reading ours: This is the most important email of the year on the biggest day for online fundraising. And it's always such a tough one to write: Talk about pressure!

Part of me just wants to scream in all caps (but I won't): Please support Mother Jones' hard-hitting journalism with a year-end gift, we still have a quite considerable $97,000 left to raise today, and we can't afford to come up short…and leave it at that. Time is short, and we're all busy.

Those things are true, and it's also true that we might end today and this year more than a small rounding error short of our mark. In years past, readers have heroically pitched in upwards of $90,000 on December 31, but $97,000 is more than that, and it's so nerve-wracking trusting that 7.19 percent of the online support we expect to bring in over an entire year will materialize in just one day, today. I hope you'll help that huge finish happen again this year and pitch in if you can right now.

But I also want to zoom out, and hope you'll come with me for a moment: Because as important as hitting that big number is, what we're trying to accomplish together is about so much more than today's deadline and dollars.

It's about saving our democracy. For real. We came a lot closer to an overturned election than we knew last year, and an entire half of our political leadership is committed to rewriting history, disenfranchising voters, and undermining elections—all so they can maintain minority rule and enact an agenda that they can't get voters to support fair and square.

It's there for anyone to see, and it's a far cry from "politics as usual." That many in the media are still not covering this every day with the urgency that an attempted and ongoing coup demands is a disastrous failure of political journalism right now. (It is also a foreseeable one, partly explained by the economics of the news business, and all too easy for bad faith actors to exploit—but I'll save all that for another day.)

And it's why, thanks to being funded primarily by our community of readers, Mother Jones can have a team of journalists on our democracy beat who look at the forces behind the headlines and report on the systemic failures and threats to democracy 365 days a year. Voting rights and voter suppression, dark money behind the scenes, disinformation and extremism, fights in Congress, the courts, and state Capitols, they're all part of a coordinated effort to subvert democracy and we'll cover them as such without pulling any punches. It's our single biggest reporting effort heading into 2022 and the midterms, and with the 2024 presidential campaign starting to take shape by this time next year. (Yeah, I feel the same about that. Already!?!?)

In fact, and in practice for us, covering democracy the way it needs to be covered right now touches just about every other core beat MoJo digs deep on to make good on our mission of doing quality journalism that can truly add something of value to the news cycle, and that can help drive change instead of a profit.

Racial and economic justice, climate progress, immigration, the fight against corruption and the fight for reproductive rights and science-guided policy to name a few: They all come back in some way to democracy and how well, or how poorly, it's working, and they all need to be reported on as the overlapping beats that they are, day-in and day-out, not just when they're in the headlines.

And all of that, our ability to report our tails off on these big issues and help make change alongside folks like you, that's what today's talk of deadlines and dollars are really about. I sincerely hope you might pitch in with a last-minute year-end gift to support our work and, along with your fellow readers, help us realize the big $97,000 haul we need by day's end. There simply is no way to keep a team like ours going without reader support: The market, corporations, and billionaire owners don't incentivize reporting like that.

But back to where I started this email, and all the other worthy nonprofits asking for your donations today. I hope you might be able to support them too—even that means splitting your giving between MoJo and another group working on an issue you care about. After all, what we're trying to accomplish together is about so much more than today's deadline and dollars—and it's about way more than Mother Jones and fearless journalism. So, let's finish the year off the same way we've gotten through these last couple: by helping each other out. (If you do, and you happen to use Twitter, I'd love to hear about the choices you've made: @monikabauerlein.)

I have to say, as anxious as I am about hitting that number by day's end (which is very anxious, so here's one last link to donate), taking a moment to zoom out and reminding myself of our community's incredible generosity, I feel a lot better about it all, no matter what today may bring. Whew.

Thanks for reading, and for everything you do to make Mother Jones what it is. I know we've been asking for your support a lot these last couple weeks, but please know that whether or not you can pitch in today or ever, I'm truly grateful you're with us for the hard work ahead.

Wishing a happy new year to you and yours,

Monika Bauerlein, CEO

Mother Jones

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P.S. If you recently made a donation, thank you! And please accept our apologies for sending you this reminder—our systems take a little while to catch up.