August 1, 2000

Alternative Convention Coverage

Tired of the feel-good mainstream coverage of politics-as-usual this convention season? Here’s our guide to alternative and independent sources of news and views of the 2000 GOP and Democratic conventions.

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Alternative News

Alternet
A one-stop shop for unconventional convention news, with links to stories from the best alternative news sources, including The Nation, Corporate Watch, the Philadelphia Weekly, Grist, and the Independent Media Center.

The Nation
Great on-the-spot coverage of the GOP convention and the protests surrounding them.

The Philadelphia Independent Media Center
The bad boys and girls of indy media are on the ground with the protesters, getting the stories behind the glam.

Democracy Now
Amy Goodman et al get right into Dubya’s face as he heads to the convention, and grill him on war crimes in Iraq. The radio show’s “Oiligharchy” coverage of the GOP ticket is top-notch. Good stuff on corporate financiers of the convention and more.

Free Speech TV
Video netcasts from the Philadelphia Independent Media Center.

National Radio Project
“UnConventional” analysis from voices you trust, including Andrei Codrescu, Norm Solomon, and Elizabeth Robinson.

News for Change
Working Assets’ newish alternative news channel offers audio feeds from the convention and assorted columns from the usual lefty suspects.

Tom Paine
Made in Alternet’s image but with more original content, Tom Paine is dedicating its news muscle to the Shadow Conventions.

Activist Groups

The R2K Network
An umbrella group of organizers and activists taking to the streets of Philly for the convention.

Philadelphia Direct Action
With a domain name like “thepartysover.org,” you know you’ve got in-your-face activists who know how to have fun, too. Look to these guys for your “Ministry of Puppetganda” updates and schedules of planned direct actions designed to disrupt the GOP confab.

Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)
Parody site and group calls attention to the problem of campaign finance. The “Candidate Price/Performance Analysis” is priceless.

Shadow Conventions
Arianna Huffington’s brainchild is staging daily alt-convention speakers focussing on three main issues: the failed drug war, the broadening wealth gap, and campaign finance reform.

Ruckus Society
Uber-organizers of the WTO and IMF protests in recent months, Ruckus is focusing on organizing protests for the Democratic Convention later this month.

AnarchoHood Philadelphia
The anarchists are out in force in Philly for the GOP convention.

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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.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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