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Heck no. Nope. No thanks. MoJo Reader, You can't make this up. During congressional hearings about a
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Heck no. Nope. No thanks. [Mother Jones]( MoJo Reader, You can't make this up. During congressional hearings about an attempted coup built entirely on liesâhearings where we learned chilling facts about how too many people who knew the truth failed to defend itâit was easy to miss a small bit of news in the field of journalism that speaks volumes. The new head of one of America'sâand the world'sâmost powerful news organizations [frowns on]( his staff using the term "the Big Lie." No, this is not an Onion headline. It is exactly the kind of performative detachment that has done a lot to get us into this mess to begin with. News should be fair, and it should be truthful. That seems a pretty basic formulation that people who care about journalism can agree on. And it does mean that journalists should avoid language crafted by spin doctors and propagandists (my favorite might be the classic [effort]( to rebrand sewage as "biosolids"). But "Big Lie" is not, as CNN head Chris Licht reportedly argues, Democratic Party spin. It's a term that [historians]( [applied]( to Trump's insistence that he won the election, drawing on the history of fascism and authoritarianism (Hitler and Goebbels [leveled]( the term against Jewish people and the British government, respectively; the political philosopher Hannah Arendt made clear that it was the Nazis who tore at the "[fabric of factuality](.") It's true that today, Democrats use the term "Big Lie" and most Republicans do not. But casting that as a partisan disagreement is only accurate inasmuch as one of these parties is in thrall to antidemocratic forces and the other is not. If Democrats were saying the sky is blue and Republicans insisted it is red, should CNN steer clear of stating the color of the sky? (Licht [reportedly]( is also "evaluating" CNN journalists who have confronted Trump's antidemocratic crusade.) Journalists need to seek out and explain multiple sides of an argument. But that doesn't mean we have to play along with rending the fabric of factuality. The facts don't always become clear if we just listen to what "both sides" are saying. The facts become clear if we listen toâ¦the facts. And one big fact is that the "Big Lie" is a pretty clear description of what actually happened in the winter of 2020/2021. False equivalence and faintheartedness really [fire me up](, [always have](, but I'm going to resist the urge to [keep going]( because Brian, who works with me on these emails, has made clear that I need to stay focused on the task at hand: our fundraising. It's not looking great right now, honestly, still with $240,000 left to raise in less than two weeks to finish our fiscal year square. We're concerned we might end up well short, even if [donations]( pick up like they usually do when a big deadline draws near like June 30. There's a bit more about what's on the line in my longer note from a few days ago, which I'll paste below. I hope you'll give it a read, and if you can, that you'll [consider making a much-needed and much-appreciated donation]( to keep our team calling a big lie a big lie. âMonika [Donate]( MoJo Reader, I'm going to be (yes, I know, uncharacteristically) short and direct today. Because something struck me after Monday morning's January 6 hearing, and Iâll be thinking about it as our team gets ready for the next hearing tomorrow. We heard from a raft of witnesses who all testified that Donald Trump was directly and repeatedly told he lost the election, yet he lied and continued to lie to advance his plan to remain in power. "The only slight surprise was that Trump followed this plan," MoJo's Dan Friedman [wrote]( in a piece warning us not to be distracted by the details of how intoxicated Rudy Giuliani might have been that night. "The fact that Trump had a preexisting plan to pretend he won the election even if he lost shows that he was not confused. He was lying. He knew his claims were false, or just as bad, didnât care whether they were or not." That in itself wasn't a huge revelation, but it is quite damning. It's not as easy as it might seem for a journalist to call a lie a lie. You have to prove the willful intent to mislead, and Monday's hearing was as close to a slam dunk as you can get. It really drove home for me just how important it is to defend the truth no matter how unpopular it might be. And that was my big-picture takeaway: When people who know better don't stand up for the truthâas the people surrounding Trump on election night didn'tâyou can see how easy it is for bad-faith actors to exploit the timidity. Our institutions weren't designed for people in high office to look the other way or resign to a leader's attempt to overturn the results of an election. Mother Jones was designed to go after the truth no matter what. But to live up to that mission, we need to bring in the money it takes to keep our team of far-from-timid reporters digging up and defending the truth. And I'm concerned about that. We need to a raise a significant $250,000 in [donations from our online readers]( in the next 15 days, when our fiscal year ends on June 30, and for the last month-plus we've been trying to work that number down without going into panic mode. I donât want to send you those doom-and-gloom fundraising emails that I see far too often in my own inbox. But the honest truth is, as I work with the team here to finalize our next budgeting cycle, Iâm worried that we might come up significantly short. [If you can right now, I sincerely hope you'll help us stand up for the truth forcefully and frequently with a donation today](. Whether you can pitch in $5 or $500, it all makes a difference: Every dollar is being scrutinized right now and with traffic down and inflation upâhere's [a fascinating look at how the cost of paper]( for our magazine has gone up 38 percent in the last six months (including a scene about massive, frozen rolls of paper!)âwe need to get as close to that big number as we can so we don't have to do some serious scrambling in the coming weeks. I'm going to leave it there today, but as focused on one thing as this note is, please know that even if you can't pitch in today or ever, I'm grateful you're part of the MoJo community and look to our reporting to help you make sense of and make change in the world. Onward, [Monika] Monika Bauerlein, CEO Mother Jones [Donate]( P.S. If you recently made a donation, thank you! And please accept our apologies for sending you this reminderâour systems take a little while to catch up. [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. To change the messages you receive from us, you can [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from all mailings.]( For advertising opportunities see our online [media kit.]( Were you forwarded this email? [Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today.]( [www.MotherJones.com](
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