Brodner’s Cartoon du Jour: Wither Print: 1 of 3

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Gradually coming into focus is the very harsh prospect of a world without newspapers. McClatchy just announced more job cuts; the LA Times is becoming a shadow of what it was. The Rocky Mountain News is gone and the SF Chronicle may be the first newspaper to go, leaving a major city newspaperless. The NY Times, though privately owned, cannot sustain huge losses indefinitely. So what does this mean? I wouldn’t be so gravely concerned if there was something even remotely like a newspaper for organizing and delivering news. It is not just the investment in newsgathering that will be lost. It is also the issue of DESIGN. Unlike the Web, which has almost no design in media sites. Here design is integral in giving the reader a sense of the scope and weight of news. Only a newspaper does that. In the future I am sure the Web will because it will have to. But what about in the interim? It is in those cracks that very bad things can grow. Journalism is the fourth branch of government. Losing a big part of it will mean important things can be more easily hidden. I feel this is too important for the market to solve. Here is the first of a series of voices on the topic. The first is Bruce Bartlett, former Treasury Dept. economist under HW Bush writing on Forbes.com:

“Personally, I am partial to the nonprofit model. Foundations, universities, think tanks and even political parties might sponsor publications. For example, the Ford Foundation might take over The New York Times, Harvard University might buy The Boston Globe and the Heritage Foundation might assume control of [sic] The Washington Times. They could run these publications without expectation of profit and a [sic] least keep alive the basic journalistic function.”

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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.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

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.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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