Dear Friends,
If you are anything at all like me, you are in the habit of looking for the bright places in the gloom. They are, all too often, damnably few and far between, but when I come across them, it feels like a skyrocket going off in my chest. One piece of good news can buoy me for a week, like hearing a snatch of song I love and haven't heard for a long time. Yesterday, for me, it was the news that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was on hand to watch her husband ride the shuttle Endeavor into the firmament for that craft's final flight. I read about that and started grinning like an idiot, because it is a marvel that she is with us at all.
Rep. Paul Ryan and his “bold” right-wing pals in the House are preparing to repackage their plan to annihilate Medicare. The Mississippi River is rising, and those waters threaten to wash away homes and lives and livelihoods. Tuscaloosa has been ravaged by tornadoes. The unemployment rate remains stubbornly high. The Wall Street wizards, mortgage thieves and bank brigands remain stubbornly un-prosecuted. The war in Afghanistan goes on. The war in Iraq goes on. The war in Libya goes on … and so, it seems, do I. It is a hard hustle, knowing just how bad it is out there, so I cling to those bright spots like a man with a life preserver lost at sea, hoping the top of the next wave will bring into view a friendly ship, a safe harbor or even just a tiny patch of sand to stand on.
I suppose it would be easier to float through life deliberately unaware, or better yet, happily misinformed by the likes of Fox News and the rest of the “mainstream” media, but I am my father's son, and my mother's son, and I am an American who gives a towering damn about who we are and where we've been and where we are to go. I am not wired for indifference, and as you are reading this, then neither, I suspect, are you. If you help Truthout, we will help you, and together we will enjoy the moments of brightness as we find them. Together, perhaps, we can find a way to make them a more common occurrence. The effort, in the end, is its own reward.
Truthout must meet its monthly budget so that, through tough times and bright times, we can keep this effort going strong. Right now, we must raise about $38,000 more to meet our fundraising goal. Can you make a contribution tonight and help us continue doing this work?
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Send your thoughts to [email protected].
Sincerely,
William Rivers Pitt
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
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