The fundraiser is going great.
But I still haven’t met the goal. We’re stuck on $300 still needed in order for me to break even up to this point in 2009. Thanks to the amazing people who have jumped in, many first time financial supporters.
The last inch is always the hardest. But I need to get over this line, because I’ve still got the reality of my financial nut going forward.
NEW MEDIA is having a tough time this year. The economy has hit traditional media hard, so you can imagine how it’s hit NEW MEDIA.
To make an important point by way of a distinction, there is blogging and then there is NEW MEDIA. What’s the difference? Your sister might have a blog, which is important to you and her world, as well as her readers, all of which matter, no doubt about it. NEW MEDIA does reporting on events that have a wider impact and we devote our life to this purpose, and independent NEW MEDIA outlets like mine don’t have a base of financial support, except through you, the reader, and advertisers. As a way of thanks, I am so grateful for the people at Common Sense Media (and regular advertisers like SEIU, as well as Al Gore’s climate group, to name just two). Because BlogAds isn’t exactly successful when it comes to drumming up any advertising at all. I cannot thank the people at Common Sense Media loudly enough.
Everyone needs to consider sites that offer valuable reporting and other critically important news coverage that only NEW MEDIA provides worthy of financial support. It’s tough because we started out on a free information platform, so getting people to see us as requiring the same financial support that, say, a monthly or weekly subscription supplies isn’t easy. That includes advocacy groups and politicians who want to reach the activist base of the Democratic Party. Don’t just invite us to events to cover, support your issue by reaching our audience through advertising. Don’t tease us with access, then make us pay for the privilege when you’re also asking us to cover your issue through making us foot the bill; when you’re not reaching out to our readers through advertising yourself that helps us pay for expenses, including trips to do the reporting you want done. Make it possible for us to cover important news that the traditional media ignores.
Like any subscription to a newspaper or magazine, like paying for cable, NEW MEDIA sites can’t succeed without financial support.
Other sites have obviously done amazing work too, like Firedoglake’s coverage, to name one.
And just look at the foreign policy live reporting I’ve done, taking the Twitter posts as just one example: covering an important Saudi Arabia forum, the Middle East (covering it like few others), invite only meeting with David Miliband, journalists on Afghanistan-Pakistan, lunch with Mustafa Barghouti, even Cuba, Iran pre election polling, and a CATO event on whether the Pentagon can be fixed. …and that’s just a brief summary of what’s been going on around here since I moved to Washington. Sorry to bore regulars around here, but many don’t know what’s been going on.
Here’s the mailing address people have asked me to post:
Taylor Marsh LLC
P.O. Box 8303
Alexandria, VA
(Also see the “support independent journalism” donate button below the ad box up on the right that is always there.)
So please donate and support NEW MEDIA. We earn it.
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