May 27, 2020

Good News About Fake News: Twitter Is Labeling Trump’s Lies

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Twitter added fact-check warnings yesterday to two Trump tweets for the first time in history, a major move to curb his spread of lies and conspiracy babble, which could be the most encouraging news all…week? The world’s largest ego and lyingest president is being brought to size or at least facing efforts to do so. But should we rejoice? Or keep pressing Jack Dorsey on why he hasn’t banned or suspended Trump for repeated violations of terms applied to everyone else who abuses, harasses, and threatens users? Listen to Dorsey weigh that question and tell me if you think he’s right at recharge@motherjones.com: Should Trump get a hall pass because he’s a powerful world figure whose lies we need to record regardless of violations? Take cheer where you can: Fact-check tags begin.

More Recharge boosts:

Birthday strength. Yesterday’s news was rounded out by the shared birthdays of Lauryn Hill and Miles Davis. Hill did what she’s cherished for: educated the world, this time by encouraging a graduating class with words of wisdom before her birthday. Boost yourself with her live recording of “Killing Me Softly” from ’96, “Redemption Song” from ’99, “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind” from 2001, or “Ready or Not” from 2012.

Miles Davis’ birthday was celebrated just two days after the loss this week of Kind of Blue drummer Jimmy Cobb. Salute both with this timeless, replenishing recording of you know what.

Brushing up. Murals are popping up on boarded-up restaurants in Oakland and San Francisco in an organized effort to create canvases for artists. Check out Paint the Void’s Helice Wen.

Calling all kindness-doers: Remember the good landlord who canceled rent for three months and told tenants to keep the cash or spend it at local businesses? Here’s a pledge: Send your stories in this vein to recharge@motherjones.com and you’ll get a Mother Jones shout-out.

Start the presses. Newspapers are on financial life support, but a community turned up to keep one going: A librarian launched a weekly paper in Weare, New Hampshire, and when the librarian died and the library where it was printed closed, six residents stepped up to keep the paper humming. H/T to Recharge reader Dave Beard for the inspiring bite.

Spin the daily blog at motherjones.com/recharge, and make it shine at recharge@motherjones.com.

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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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