David Corn nails it (again).

Fundraising malpractice.   [Mother Jones]( Wow. David Corn nailed it yet again. His email from earlier today, about two recent dark-money scoops and how he came to view journalism as a cause, not a profession, back when he was a reporter for his high school newspaper, is really resonating with folks. And with just about 54 hours left to raise what's now about $110,000 in [online donations we urgently need](, it would be fundraising malpractice if I didn't do everything I can to get even more mileage out of it. So if you missed his great note earlier, or didn't have time to read it all the way through (our emails aren't as short as we sometimes wish they were), I hope you'll check it out this evening—and that you'll [help keep him and all of our reporters charging hard with a donation if you can right now](. —Brian [Donate](   MoJo Reader, I'm not going to waste your time. This is an important email for the future of Mother Jones' kickass journalism. And I am going to ask for your help—which, in this case, means money. I recently had a few scoops into a dark-money group that could affect the 2024 election and help Donald Trump, and I’d like to share them with you, as well as a life-changing personal story. But our fundraising team asked me to lead with a heartfelt request to emphasize the urgency of the moment for us. Our fiscal year ends on Friday, in just two days, and we still need a considerable $135,000 in [online donations]( to balance our books‚ or at least get much closer than we are now. If you’ve heard from me before, you know I don't relish asking you for your hard-earned money. But here’s the bottom line: [Support from readers]( is the only thing that allows MoJo to do journalism the way we do, and that, dear reader, is something I feel quite strongly about. I know many of you do, too. And these days we should be doing more fierce journalism, not less. But if we don’t bring in [significantly more donations](, we're going to be facing a much bigger gap than can be easily managed. So I’m asking you for [your help]( right now. Mother Jones is one of the premier nonprofit journalistic outlets. We survive—and thrive—because readers like you value our work enough to [send us money](. When we need to go to the well, you’re it—not corporate advertisers or billionaire owners. That’s why I’m knocking on your inbox this very moment. After all, we don’t have access to a list of "36 wealthy contributors and corporate high-rollers" to bankroll Mother Jones. That’s a reference to [a scoop Russ Choma and I unearthed last week](. We uncovered a list of funders for a dark-money group that is positioning itself to disrupt the 2024 election and that refuses to disclose its financial backers. No Labels is the political outfit preparing to run a “unity” ticket in 2024 that Democratic strategists and Never-Trump Republican operatives fear will siphon votes from President Joe Biden. Unlike political parties, political action committees, and candidates, it is not required to reveal who is funding it. And No Labels, which says it intends to raise $70 million to possibly place a third-party candidate on the presidential ballot next year, refuses to tell us who is putting up the big bucks for this project. Don't you think voters deserve to know who's backing such an operation? Let us help. The big spenders we were able to [track down]( include DC insiders and special-interest corporate bigwigs from various sectors, including private equity and tech. Several of them are prominent GOP donors who have dumped millions into Republican campaigns, including Trump’s 2020 effort. At least 16 of them have shelled out for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the erratic Democrat who left the party. No Labels is trying to obtain ballot lines in states across the country, and Sen. Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat, is the most discussed potential candidate for its 2024 ticket. You can see what No Labels and their wealthy patrons are up to: getting ready to possibly run a candidate who would be a spoiler and likely draw more votes from the Democrat than the Republican in the race. This could be a huge boost for Donald Trump, if he once again wins the GOP nomination. No Labels is trying to keep much of this effort—especially the money behind it—in the dark. But Russ and I blew their cover. So I hope you'll [give our investigation a read and share it with others you know who care about democracy and transparency](—preferably after [donating](. (The business team made me add that last part!) It is very difficult to track down information like this on dark-money groups. That's a big reason why being [supported by readers]( instead of profit-driven owners matters so much for Mother Jones. If we’re not chasing clicks to serve corporate overlords, we have the ability and more time to do the in-depth reporting that reveals the important stuff that powerful people and forces don’t want you to know. You have my word that, [with your support](, my team and I will stay focused on the all-important money-and-influence story as the 2024 election ramps up. And let me add: A few weeks ago, I got [another scoop about No Labels](. On its website, the group urges politicians and citizens to eschew the “extremists on the far left and right,” and it asks people who are “fed up with the angriest voices dominating our politics” to sign up as members and donate to the group. But No Labels neglects to inform its online contributors that all these donations are processed by a right-wing tech firm that aids Republican candidates and far-right organizations that engage in the harsh politics of extremism that No Labels professes to renounce. That means every time someone makes an online donation to No Labels, a slice of that contribution ends up with this vendor that has a separate service that directs money to Republican candidates and far-right MAGA organizations, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, and Lauren Boebert, election deniers like Turning Point USA, and a host of religious right outfits. Pretty centrist, huh? You learn a lot about an organization when you follow the money. My reporting on No Labels has caused me to pay attention to the notion often raised in this time of great political division: We need to move to the center. This sort of thinking grants right-wing extremists more influence than they deserve. As my colleague Monika recently [put it](, "'Media is too divisive' is often code for 'journalists just need to be nicer to conservatives." Media critic Jay Rosen [says]( it's right out of Roger Ailes' "fair and balanced" playbook. Just look at the Messenger, a new media start-up that launched last month with a whopping $50 million in funding and a promise to deliver only “impartial and objective news.” In a brief howdy-do, editor Dan Wakeford, formerly editor-in-chief of People and editorial director of Entertainment Weekly, declared, “People are exhausted with extreme politics and platforms that inflame the divisions in our country by slanting stories towards an audience’s bias. Our talented journalists are committed to demystifying the onslaught of misinformation and delivering impartial and objective news.” Sounds good. But its opening-day Big Piece—an all-too-polite interview with Donald Trump—signals that the Messenger may be just another media outlet that enables extreme politics and the inflaming of divisions. The article based on an “exclusive” interview treats the twice-indicted Trump—who tried to overturn a national election, who incited violence, who called for suspending provisions of the Constitution so he could be installed as president, who supped with antisemites and a white supremacist, who was recently found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming E. Jean Carroll, and who is facing multiple investigations for a variety of alleged wrongdoing—as a typical pol. It focuses not on his dangerous authoritarian impulses but on the 2024 horse race and Trump’s not-so-deep thoughts about the coming election. To call this interview a softball-fest would be an insult to anyone who has ever hit, thrown, or caught the sphere with a 12-inch circumference. When media critic Joshua Benton took a look at the Messenger and [followed the money](, he found every known investor was a major Republican donor. Weird how that works. I'm proud that there's [nothing to hide]( at Mother Jones—even if that means we need to sweat out that scary $135,000 in [donations]( we must raise in these next two days. I'm proud that our entire business model, and our future, is built on doing hard-hitting journalism and trusting that people like you will [show up and support it](. I've been thinking about that more than normal in recent days, with the passing of Daniel Ellsberg—who leaked the Pentagon Papers and triggered a chain of events that led to Watergate. As I [explained]( in my Our Land [newsletter](, he changed my life, and I was honored to be a friend. (Monika published a [powerful remembrance]( of him, too.) I was a Watergate baby, fascinated, as a teen, by the scandal and much impressed by how journalists could counter the corruptions of power by excavating the truth. Watching the Watergate hearings in 1973 and reading about this sleazy affair in the newspapers—witnessing how the Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were intrepidly exposing the dirty truths of Nixon’s devious and dishonorable squad—I embraced journalism as not just a profession but a cause. At my high school newspaper, I declared myself an investigative reporter and pursued enterprise stories on how the local drug dealers in my school obtained their wares and on the rising influence of the right-wing and shady Unification Church in the region. I was hooked. I still am. I still believe in journalism as a cause—not as a profession, a vanity project, a means to an end, or a profit center. Every one of us at Mother Jones does, and I hope you'll [part with a few bucks to help us keep charging hard](. We need more, not less, reporting like ours. To do that, we have to confront this sizable $135,000 number in a big way these next two-plus days. By now, you get it. We do what we do because people like you do what you can do to [support us](. At this moment, we need requests like this one to generate more than they usually do. So please [help if you can](. If you’ve made it this far, many thanks for reading to the end. I appreciate it. I am glad that Mother Jones is important to you and that we can provide you the information you need to make sense of the world during these challenging times. It is an honor to serve our readers and to continue the Mother Jones tradition of independent journalism. I hope you join us in this vital mission. [David Corn Washington, DC, Bureau Chief Mother Jones] David Corn Washington, DC, Bureau Chief Mother Jones [Donate](   [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Donate Monthly]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. 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