March 1, 2016

This Post Is Not About Donald Trump

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In response to my final post of last night, I got this in comments:

GreenAnura: Two days straight, nothing but Donald Trump posts. Will we go a third day?

SpecialNewb: Maybe we’ll get a post on how the media is covering Trump too much.

Oof. A touch, I do confess. But Quiddity comes to my rescue:

Since 21 January (arbitrary start date), over 40 days, Kevin has made 48 posts critical of Trump out of a total of 228. That’s 1 per 4.75.

Data! Now we’re talking. And 21 percent isn’t so bad, is it? Especially when all these posts have been monolithically critical of DJT.

Still, this hits me at a sore spot. Yesterday I didn’t post much. That wasn’t because I was snoozing the day away or playing hooky at the movies. It’s because I wrote three straight Trump posts and couldn’t stand the thought of writing another. Unfortunately, with everyone finally coming to the conclusion that Trump is actually going to win the Republican race, the political news is nonstop Trump. I couldn’t really find anything else to write about, so I gave up. I finally wrote another post in the evening, but it was about….Donald Trump.

Then this morning I started out with yet another post about Trump. Finally, just before lunch, I wrote a post about Apple and the FBI. My streak was broken! Hooray! But today is Super Tuesday, so it’s not likely to last. Aside from some Bernie/Hillary news, today is going to be all about Trump.

I genuinely feel conflicted about this. I really hate being consumed by Trump. But these days, is there any bigger news in American politics? What to do?

And is this yet another post about Trump? Or should it be filed under “navel gazing”? I’ll let Quiddity decide.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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