A hard decision we had to make.

Sharing in hopes we can avoid more like it.   [Mother Jones]( MoJo Reader, Fundraising is hard. Keeping a newsroom afloat is even harder. And one of the challenges of being transparent with you about this all is communicating the urgency of our fundraising campaigns without making it sound like we're about to fall off a cliff, but also making clear that [your support is truly needed]( to stay back from that [cliff edge](. We've been beating that drum for just over a week now, trying to thread the needle the best we can, so we can raise the $253,000 we need in [online donations]( by October 7 to stay on track and avoid making hard decisions, like the one you’re about to read. Straight up: We’ve had a much slower than anticipated several days in a row now, and that’s majorly concerning, both short-term and long-term. We simply have to come up with [a big haul of donations](, and sustain it over the next several days to see where we might realistically land and figure things out from there. [Please help if you can right now](. It matters. Messaging like that sounds dire. And it undeniably feels dire to the two of us: Monika, who's responsible for the entire operation, and Brian, who's responsible for the $1.4 million online fundraising portion, and the $195,000 or so in [donations we still need to come in]( over the next 9 days (but who's counting?). Today, in the spirt of brutal honesty, we wanted to provide a concrete example of the hard decisions we’ve had to make when we come up short on our numbers and have to find something to trim—from a budget that’s already been scraped to the damn bottom several times over. We shared this once before, and it really resonated with folks. That’s exactly what we need to happen today: A big uptick in those of you [grace us with a few bucks to help us keep charging hard](. Earlier this year, our senior producer, Mark Helenowski, moved on to the next stage of his career. Mark came to Mother Jones as part of our filmmakers in residence experiment back in 2017. We wanted him to help our reporters translate their amazing investigations to another format so we could reach even more people: Not everyone wants to read an in-depth story, but a lot of people will watch a powerful video. In fact, it’s especially critical to be multimedia and multi-platformed (on TikTok, Instagram, etc.) to reach the young, diverse audience that is the future of this country and of Mother Jones. His work blew us away and he helped Mother Jones level-up in immeasurable ways. Alongside reporter Julia Lurie, Mark [spent time]( with cops, drug users, and dealers in suburban Baltimore to try to understand the impact of the opioid epidemic. He [filmed]( the spontaneous airport protests to greet separated migrant children, and documented how [some families]( were able to reunite. He [followed]( the “Road to Change” bus tour that brought Parkland school shooting and other gun violence survivors to dozens of congressional districts ahead of the 2018 midterms. He [showed]( exactly how YouTube was spreading hoaxes. An absolute favorite was his [animation]( showing how wealthy Mike Bloomberg actually is (you HAVE to watch it to appreciate it). He [came back]( to the billionaire genre to show just how much richer the superrich got during the pandemic. He teamed up with reporter Hannah Levintova to [investigate]( the stock trading app Robinhood’s mind games. He worked on so many of our big, signature investigations to tell a more powerful story that reaches people we might not otherwise reach. And in perhaps his most ambitious project of all, he created a 17-minute [documentary]( as part of reporter Samantha Michaels’ investigation of how “failure to protect” laws put domestic abuse survivors in prison for much longer sentences than their abusers. It’s being screened during a film festival in Los Angeles next month, which is so great to see. That project, which took a year to report and has sparked responses from legislators and law enforcement officials all around the country, has been honored with at least half a dozen journalism awards, including the National Magazine Award for Best Video (beating out the likes of National Geographic and the New York Times.) You can see the challenge: Great video journalism that reaches wide, and new, audiences (and wins awards!) is not cheap. And dedicating a year of reporting to a story instead of churning out cheap crap, quality over quantity, is even more expensive. In fact, right now, Samantha is working hard on what will be another project of this scale. We can’t wait to share it with you when it’s ready. And we can do that—give a reporter a year on a big story, and a big team to support her—only because [support from readers lets us call the shots, lets us go deep](. So, about those hard choices: Since Mark decided to take a break from journalism to focus on his other filmmaking passions, we haven’t been able to fill his important and impactful position. We didn’t want to bring someone new on staff unless we were really sure we could keep the position going. And the truth is, right now we can’t be sure of that. That’s not a complaint; it’s just the reality. It doesn’t mean we’ve given up on video, quite the contrary; producer Sam Van Pykeren, an alum of our fellowship program, has been doing [amazing work]( and coaching our reporters to do the same. Creator in residence [Garrison Hayes](, a pastor-turned-journalist, has cranked out a whole series of fantastic pieces on topics from [Clarence Thomas’ organizing belief]( to the meaning of [reparations]( to the Tennessee legislature’s unprecedented [expulsion]( of two Black lawmakers, plus [responding]( to the racist comments he gets in response. Our team’s scrappiness, honestly, is astonishing. We make do, and we continue to punch above our weight and budget in ways that boggle the mind every day. No matter the hardships journalism face, Mother Jones will find a way to scrape by in some form. But “in some form” is pretty grim, especially when the need to keep going as hard as we can, and do more, is so great. We can and want to step up. And our only limiting factor is how much money we’re able to realistically bring in so that we can pay for it all without going into the red for too long. That’s what’s behind that $195,000 in [online donations]( that we still need to raise over the next week or so. So we'll finish where we started: We can't afford to come up short and end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, and we can’t stomach needing to trim more expenses along the way to make it all work again. We need more help than normal, we’re majorly concerned about where this fall push might land, and there is nothing other than support from readers that could keep us going strong. [If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation today](—and please do it before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think, "I'll get to it eventually." Whether you can [pitch in $5, $50, or $500](, it all matters and makes Mother Jones possible when combined with your fellow readers. Thanks for reading, and thanks for expecting us to give you the full picture when it comes to our fundraising just like you expect from our journalism. Onward, Monika Bauerlein CEO Brian Hiatt Online Membership Director [Donate](   [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Donate Monthly]( [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]( PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755