Time To Pony Up
| There sure was a lot of moaning and whining from some readers about my affiliation with Pajamas Media. But there were NO comments when I severed that connection a few weeks ago (amicably) and the PJ logo and ads disappeared from the blog.
Tells me a lot. Now, to tell you something. The Nation magazine which I work for us is about to get crunched by an unprecedented hike in postage rates — enough to hobble journals of opinion of both the Right and the Left. I don’t ask you to donate to this blog (which you can always do) but rather to put your money where your mouth has been and put up a few bucks for The Nation’s emergency fund-raising campaign. Just read below and follow the links.
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Dear Member of the Nation Community, 
Half a million dollars. In postage. In just a few short days, The Nation will pay one of the biggest new bills weÂ’ve ever faced. If you were planning on making a contribution during this critical time of need—and I hope you are—this is it. Click here to pitch in during what IÂ’m calling “The Great Postage Crisis of 2007.” The Crisis, in case you havenÂ’t heard, is this: postal regulators have accepted a scheme designed in part by lobbyists for the TimeWarner media conglomerate. In short, mailing costs for mega-magazines like TimeWarnerÂ’s own Time, People and Sports Illustrated will go up much less or in some cases decrease. But smaller publications like The Nation will be hit by an enormous rate increase of half a million dollars a year. This is not a small amount of money for The Nation! During the next few days, IÂ’ll be working to put together the rest of the budget the magazine will need to prevent cutbacks to our investigative reporting, our coverage of important issues ignored by the corporate-supported mainstream media, and to our efforts to expand our outreach programs to a new generation of students, activists and thinkers. Your response today will let me know how much money we’re going to need to scrape together—right now is your last chance to make that burden just a little less. Click here to donate today. I have been The NationÂ’s editor since 1995 and publisher since 2005. Believe me, IÂ’ve heard the stories of what The Nation has done to survive 142 years of publishing. Like in 1954, when the magazineÂ’s finances became so precarious that we had to arrange for The Nation to be published at the plant of Southern Farmer magazine in Alabama. The editors installed a Teletype system over which copy, corrections, editorials were transmitted from our New York offices to the plant in Alabama. This unwieldy and improbable arrangement lasted for nearly a year! The magazine survived that crisis. So, I hope the Great Postage Crisis of 2007 will be just another story told by another publisher 10 or 20 or 50 years from now. Given the state of things in the country at this time, and a historically decisive election on the horizon, the timing of this Crisis couldnÂ’t be more critical. The Nation continues to be a voice of truth, free-speech and democracy. But we need your help, if you can possibly give it, and we need it now. Click here. Sincerely, |
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July 9th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
I was one of the moaners (I’m more of a moaner than a whiner), and I have to say that I never noticed the change. That shouldn’t be surprising, though, since ignoring the PJ ads was a little like plugging your nose when you’re near a garbage dump: after a while, it becomes just another natural act, done without thinking. I think that’s about all that tells you.
As far as celebrating the change, well, we really can’t do that without any specific details now, can we?
Oh, and Ms. Vanden Heuvel is quite the hottie.
July 9th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Well, I did notice something because your Recent Posts and Friends and Favorites was moved from the left hand side of the screen to the right hand side. Not having a clear memory of what had been on the right before, I didn’t catch the loss of the PJ logo. I guess I thought you’d simply ‘rearranged the furniture in the living room.’
Contribution? Done.
July 9th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Bravo Marc. I’m happy to discover you’ve severed your blog’s relationship with the diaper boys at Pajama. They really don’t deserve you.
And I will indeed make a donation to The Nation with a note that I was motivated in part by your work at the magazine.
Further, I stand by my promise that if and when you put a tip box or subscription fee on this blog, I will contribute to that as well.
July 9th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
bunkerbuster, since you’ve already called my reading skills and cognitive abilities into question, I am reluctant to point out that there is a PayPal donation link in the uppper left hand corner of this page, lest you find fault with my observational skills as well.
July 9th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
done
The Nation sometimes drives me crazy, but they’re essential.
July 9th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
The Nation rocks, I got my first subscription courtesy of a 70-something 1930s-edition radical lady in 1980s Orange County, while working with Ralph Naderites( !)
It was great. Even Christopher Hitchens was fun then, and David Corn still is.
My money is sent, and the pajamas sucked.
And fellas, please, she’s married. To a Russian studies prof, no less.
July 9th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
I like unusual historical items–like someone from Alabama printing “The Nation” in 1954.
Against the Mainstream
Coincidentally, I spent this past weekend in Magnolia Springs, Alabama, where Gould Beech lived the last part of his life. If Katrina Vanden Heuvel is concerned about mailing costs, she should know that mail in Magnolia Springs is still delivered by boat to mail boxes on people’s docks. But, calling the rate changes “a scheme” is just sour grapes for being out-lobbied.
Marc, I didn’t realize that you had disassociated from PJ Media. Let Dennis the Peasant know so that he might take down that awful picture that he said was you.
July 9th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
I propose “COOPER CUTS THE PAJAMACON: THREE DAYS OF PEACE, LOVE, MUSIC AND POKER IN RENO, summer of 2008 Baby!!! Merle Haggard, Randy Newman, Spinal Tap and Lindsey Lohan on the mainstage… It started out as a concert, and became a celebration!!”
I read the Nation at the library!
July 9th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Never made on issue of PJ Media. I figured Roger L. Simon was a friend of yours and I’ve had friends who did some things I don’t agree with, but didn’t turn my back on them.
I did just kick in some money for The Nation, however. Good luck with this. We need more voices out there and we need even more with some sense.
July 9th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
The Department of Defense has identified 3,591 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:
CAUSOR, Roberto J. Jr., 21, Specialist, Army; San Jose, Calif.; 82nd Airborne Division.
STACEY, Jeremy L., 23, Specialist, Army; Bismarck, Ark.; First Cavalry Division.
VINNEDGE, Anthony M. K., 24, Specialist; Army; Okeana, Ohio; Ohio Army National Guard.
July 10th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Funny to hear a plea of poverty from the granddaughter of Jules Stein he of MCA fame…weren’t the Steins the ones who fought an IRS Ruling on one of their tax shelters all the way to the Supreme Court?
July 10th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Yeah, Lew W., that is really ironic. Why doesn’t she just ask grandpa for the money? Oh, right, because he’s dead and he wouldn’t have given it to The Nation when he was alive. What is even more ironic perhaps is that complete idiots like Lew W. know how to use a computer.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
As I’ve coughed up at The Nation and fully intend to do the same at Marc’s teeny tiny tip box–now that “listener” helped me find it–I feel entitled to at least ask why Marc finally gave PJ Media the boot?
I feel very safe assuming it wasn’t the other way around…
July 10th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
The Department of Defense has identified 3,599 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:
ALLBAUGH, Jeremy D., 21, Cpl., Marines; Luther, Okla.; First Marine Expeditionary Force.
DORE, Jason E., 25, Pfc., Army; Moscow, Me.; First Cavalry Division.
LAMIE, Gene L., 25, Sgt., Army; Homerville, Ga.; Third Infantry Division.
LOCKEY, Jon M., 44, Col., Army; Fredericksburg, Va.; assigned to Department of the Army headquarters.
MITCHELL, Sean K., 35, Sgt. First Class, Army; Monterey, Calif.; 10th Special Forces Group.
RAMIREZ, Angel R., 28, Lance Cpl., Marines; Brooklyn; First Marine Expeditionary Force.
STACY, Steven A., 23, Lance Cpl., Marines; Coos Bay, Ore.; First Marine Expeditionary Force.
WILSON, Le Ron A., 18, Pfc., Army; Queens; Third Infantry Division.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Speaking of severed ties, when did Marc stop doing RadioNation. Did he lose this gig because of all the redbaiting tripe he posts here? If so, I will send $100 to the Nation for their excellent judgment.
July 11th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
“Funny to hear a plea of poverty from the granddaughter of Jules Stein”
Not a plea of poverty – but of shared responsibility for the future of a liberal institution. The leftie Nation “ironically” is the most financially solvent independent political weekly in the U.S., so far as I know. I believe it’s managed a couple of times to actually run in the black. I’d hate to see it adrift soley by virtue of the Vanden Heuvel family’s bank account or trust funds (or the publisher’s succession of wive’s inheritances, TNR-style) rather than the contributions of its readers.
July 11th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
No disrepect intended, but many left-leaning magazines and broadcast services are constantly having financial problems and/or needing to have special fund raisers. Is requiring more funds above subscription prices and ad revenue more of a function of mismanagement or lack of interest by the public?
One time, the anti-business and anti-Republican “Consumer Reports” called me wanting me to “contribute.” I told them to raise their subscription prices, cut their costs, or get more productivity out of employees to cover the short-fall. If they raised their rates, then I would decide if it was still worth renewing after then. (I quit them, anyway, because of their left-wing bias and editorials, such as government should take over medical care.) Why doesn’t “The Nation” at least try to raise their prices?
But, when conservatives try to get publications financially on track, like the L.A. Times, liberals go nuts and act as if business should have nothing to do with journalism.
Give me a week with “The Nation” and I’ll have them in the black. Maybe I could get Exxon to take out ads.
July 11th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Commentary, a conservative magazine relies on donors to the point that they have a position for Director of Donor Development: http://tinyurl.com/2924va
Financial problems in magazines aren’t exclusive to the left.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Not exclusive and I didn’t say that. However, these problems are more common with the left, such as Air America vs. conservative talk radio. However, just go on believing that everyone has the same problem rather than trying to solve it.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
July 11th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
“anti-business and anti-Republican “Consumer Reports†“
LOL! Sometimes I forget what a right-wing loon Woody is. Yes, those commie bastards are responsible for my… *gasp*… making informed choices before I support the economy with my purchasing power! Don’t tell anyone, but it’s because of Consumer Reports that I bought a Mac instead of a Dell, and we all know that Steve Jobs is the next Pol Pot.
Ah, a good laugh is always best before bed. Sweet dreams, y’all.
July 12th, 2007 at 12:35 am
Woody, as usual, is an ill-informed, blathering idiot trading in drivel and invective.
“Give (him) a week at The Nation…†and everyone would resign in disgust at working with a preening moron. Navasky and Vanden Heuvel have done a good job of steering the magazine’s fortunes – certainly compared to right-wing loss-leaders like The Weekly Standard, which is a Murdoch vanity publication to push his political influence at a huge dollar loss.
http://www.forward.com/articles/3417/
The last think in the world we need is to be lectured on fiscal responsibility from a guy who’s tried to sell us on the shipwreck of insanity, spiralling unpaid bills and general corruption and incompetence known as the Bush Administration and the GOP. Maybe you should give your great advice on financial solvency and fundraising to the McCain campaign. It’s like one of those lectures on “family values†and the dangers of gay marriage from Senator Vitter.
July 12th, 2007 at 7:03 am
the shipwreck of insanity, spiralling unpaid bills and general corruption and incompetence….
and higher taxes, weaker defense, activist judges, and rush to socialism, which is the Democratic Party throughout most of my lifetime.
(And, Samuel, left-wingers just cannot help expressing their political views, no matter where it comes up. They hijack every forum that they can, from media to churches, to forward their agenda, without regard to the actual purpose that they are to serve. They sell some good products but then slip their neatly wrapped “stools” into your bag, as you check out.)
July 12th, 2007 at 7:05 am
Dadgum, am I the only one who runs into “comment awaiting moderation” all of the time? I’m beginning to feel like our old friend York. Here’s the second try:
reg: the shipwreck of insanity, spiralling unpaid bills and general corruption and incompetence….
and higher taxes, weaker defense, activist judges, and rush to socialism, which is the Democratic Party throughout most of my lifetime.
(And, Samuel, left-wingers just cannot help expressing their political views, no matter where it comes up. They hijack every forum that they can, from media to churches, to forward their agenda, without regard to the actual purpose that they are to serve. They sell some good products but then slip their neatly wrapped “stools” into your bag, as you check out.)
July 12th, 2007 at 8:55 am
reg,
I’m glad that you brought up The Weekly Standard, which I might add is largely subsidized by NewsCorp’s revenues from “liberal Hollywood.”
I might also add that The American Spectator solicits donations.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Thanks for the link to the Forward article reg. I enjoyed reading about the old Wily and Parsimonious Victory Navasky.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Victory Navasky? oops. Victor Navasky, of course.
July 12th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Attempt 3 at not getting blocked…. What did I do?
Samuel, I also dropped getting “Discover” magazine. Just because a magazine has useful information doesn’t mean that they won’t try to slip their left-wing malarky in with it.
reg and Randy, picking out isolated cases doesn’t prove a rule, but you guys will never learn that. Liberals run their businesses like they run government…screw the costs and just ask for more money.
July 12th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
reg and Randy, picking out isolated cases doesn’t prove a rule, but you guys will never learn that.
Not exclusive and I didn’t say that. However, these problems are more common with the left, such as Air America vs. conservative talk radio.
Your utter lack of self-awareness never ceases to amaze me.
July 12th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Randy, could it be because you cannot make a distinction between my example to illustrate a statement and your example in an attempt to prove a case?
July 12th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
I’m not trying to prove a case. I’m merely refuting your generalization with facts, something I find myself doing frequently.
July 12th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Randy, you’ll never get it and I’m not going to keep boring people with these tit-for-tats. I don’t expect you to be as intelligent as me, but I hoped that you would be intelligent enough to discuss something logically.
July 12th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
I don’t expect you to be as intelligent as me
Rest assured, I have no plans to get a lobotomy or lobectomy. You made a generalization. Both reg and I presented evidence that refuted your generalization.
It’s not our fault if you are not mature enough to accept that. Take your marbles and go home.
July 12th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
“picking out isolated cases doesn’t prove a rule”
You made an assertion based on The Nation’s fundraising appeal. Of course, your assertion was totally baseless bullshit. In the face of being shown to be wrong, you take the coward’s way out and resort to invective and generic rant. Why are you such a total loser ? Why can’t you ever admit error, even on specifics ? Frankly, if I were a conservative, I’d be ashamed and embarrassed by your crackpot commentary.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:42 am
As usual, the Nation and Katrina Van Heundel eschew principal and a coherent argument and just ask for money.
Does the United States Post Office subsidize Time and Sports Illustrated at the expense of the Nation. What is the deal? What should be the deal?
Apparently, according to Katrina Van Heundel, small producers are being asked to subsidize large producers. I would be against that. Could there be a story here? Will it appear in the Nation?
I fucking doubt it. You might as well ask the Nation to tell you how much it spends, how much it pays its writers, how much it pays Kristina Van Heundel. (Does she take money from the Nation? Isn’t she already richer than God, as a result of unearned increments of wealth received from family members who aggresively expropriated surplus labor value from the antecedents of the Proles she now asks to contribute to the Nation?)
I have been an occasional reader of the Nation for over 25 years but have never seen anything like a financial explanation of how the Nation does business. No surprise. The Nation can’t even be bothered to explain how it is supposedly it is getting screwed , which maybe it is, as its multi-millionaire editor asks for free money.
Don’t even think about reading a Nation story about why the Nation hires its interns from the Ivy Leagues instead of the Projects.
Rupert Murdoch might be a bastard, but at least he doesn’t ask poor people for free money.
Why doesn’t the Nation just sell subscriptions to all of the people it supposedly represents, who supposedly support its goals?
How much money do you have Katrina Van Heundel? How much money do you have Victor Navatsky? Give me some, you rich fake Socialist friends of the poor.
July 13th, 2007 at 5:36 am
Short Randy: I didn’t provide an isolated example to prove a rule. I provided an isolated example to prove another rule.
The way Randy and reg analyze, one cannot generalize that the sky is blue if the ground is green.
July 13th, 2007 at 6:32 am
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZz
July 13th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Woody Says: Randy, you’ll never get it and I’m not going to keep boring people with these tit-for-tats.
Randy Says: It’s not our fault if you are not mature enough to accept that. Take your marbles and go home.
Woody responded to that.
Randy’s “mature response and taking his marbles home:” ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZz
Except he lost his marbles instead of taking them.
Really pathetic, and you wonder why I have so little respect for liberals and their inability to discuss issues rationally.
Perhaps, Randy lost his marbles. Could we have a fund raiser for him?
July 13th, 2007 at 9:03 am
[BIG YAWN]
July 13th, 2007 at 9:38 am
What happened to “I’m not going to keep boring people with these tit-for-tats” ?????
July 13th, 2007 at 9:50 am
I initially dropped it, but then couldn’t let it look like you guys won just because you claimed victory even though you were eight runs behind.
July 13th, 2007 at 10:38 am
How can one be “eight runs behind” a guy yelling from the bleachers ????
July 13th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Yeah, sad, isn’t it?
July 13th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
I loved The Nation when I was a regular reader (it’s been about 15 years.) But perhaps it’s time to face reality: It’s not so much that The Nation’s postal costs have gone up as it is that its postal subsidies have gone down. And perhaps they should — there is now this great medium called the Web that delivers the same amount of information while killing fewer trees. The early-years subsidies of the Internet have payed off handsomely for all, and The Nation needs to take more advantage of that.
I think that if The Nation took half of what it spends on postage, poured it into a good web promotion campaign, and started emphasizing advertising more as a revenue source, it could give Salon a run for its money in a few years — and get out of doing print runs entirely. In the meantime, it could simply raise rates sharply for the print channel to reduce demand for the dead-tree editions, while offering rebates to print-only subscribers who migrate to web-only subscription.
So, yeah: give it to me and Woody! When we’re not calling each other idiots, we’ll be turning this great American publication around. He can be Finance, I’ll take Marketing. The Nation would still be dependent on donations in the end (I think Navasky nailed this one in a great essay years back), but less so, and would perhaps reach many more people, and thus be living up to its founding mission even more.
July 14th, 2007 at 7:58 am
I’ve been having this almost hysterical email interchange with the ‘subscription’ folks at The Nation. A day or two after Marc made his Pony Up appeal, I considered that while a donation (which I made) was nice, a renewable subscription would be better. When I went to the Subscribe tab on their frontpage, I was offered two options; 24 weeks, and 47 weeks, both of which were ‘paper’ copies. Seemed to me that a web subscription would make more sense given postage rates, and since a paperless option (web only subscription) wasn’t among the choices, I’d inquire about one. So, I sent off an email.
I got the first response with a link that took me to a page where a web only subscription was $95. Yikes! I’d remembered the cost of a paper copy to be about $30. In looking further down the page, I noticed that subscribers in the US were to click on a different link. So I did, and encountered the same two options that I’d seen before; 24 and 47 paper issues. I went back to the main page and clicked on the Subscription tab. Lo And Behold. There were now three options; 24 and 47 paper weeks, or 47 paperless/digital weeks. I sent an email back to The Nation detailing the problem I was having with their reply – how I couldn’t find a paperless/digital offer from the links they’d emailed me, but was able to find 47 digitial weeks on their main website. My intent was to suggest that if this subscription arrangement were new, they needed to ‘clean up’ their links/cross links a bit.
Well, I got another response from this morning. Two more embedded links in this email missive. One takes me back to the $95 offer (which appears to be for folks wanting access outside of the US), and another link presented thus: “In order for you to subscribe for the US/Canada special offer of 47 issue for the amount of $29.97 please visit us at: http://www.thenation.com/digitalrequest.“ When I click on that link I’m greeted with:
Woody might not agree with The Nation‘s political stance, but I expect he’d be able to make sure their customer web interface worked.
July 14th, 2007 at 8:38 am
yikes!
July 14th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Turner and listener are absolutely right the The Nation needs to shift emphasis to the digital – which they seem to be doing with content but obviously not with marketing and subscriptions. I still like getting a paper copy to stuff into my bag and read on BART – but even the TNR dinosaur offers an online only sub that’s much cheaper than the (now incredibly expensive) USPS paper delivery. This is surely the direction their marketing should take for building new readership – they should blitz the blogs with ads for digital-only subscriptions and consider putting together a team to provide content that’s competitive with Talking Points Memo, which has created an important new internet niche with 21st Century near-instantaneous watchdog journalism in the tradition of I.F.Stone sifting through the Beltway’s document trail and the mainstream media’s backpages and overlooked stories. David Corn has done a good job of giving the Nation a familiar face in the digital world, incidentally, although I’m not a fan of the superficial stuff he’s done with that boor Miniter over at Pajamas.
July 14th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Liberals may not like conservatives, but they need them. You can’t live with them, and you can’t shoot them. Only Cheney can do that.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Actually Woody, Barry Goldwater happens to be one of the public figures I found likeable (although I emphatically didn’t agree with him) more than most. I’d certainly rather have hung out with him than with Hillary. I’ve also heard from some hardcore liberals who met him that Ronald Reagan was difficult not to like in person, even when they found his pontifications utterly foolish. On a more serious plane, I find some classic conservative thought compelling and worthwhile – ex. Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Michael Oakeshott. I have a “conservative” perservationist streak, particularly as I get older, that is offended by the radicalism of anti-social or “world domination” schemes that armchair geeks cook up at Heritage, AEI, Cato & Manhattan Institute. What I particularly don’t find compelling and dislike intensely are rightwing histrionics, glib ignorance, psuedo-religious or “free-market” fundamentalisms, bigotry or apologetics for entrenched power and corruption. The latter pretty much define the contemporary GOP Right. And I don’t need their garbage anymore than I need food poisoning or falling down a flight of stairs.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:13 am
reg, maybe it’s not them, but you.
July 14th, 2007 at 11:01 am
I’m with you, reg.
If I got nothing else out of my years as a grad student in economics, the one truly insightful experience I had was a course in which we used Barry Clark’s Political Economy: A Comparative Approach. Now the professor struck me as so profoundly conflicted him/herself that medications were clearly in order. But, that’s a different story for another time. In spite of, to spite, despite the professor, I really found Clark’s analysis em>USEFUL.
Clark’s characterization of Conservatives (of the autocratic, authoritarian type), are not the same as Classical Liberals, of which I are one. The occurrence of the neocons – which Clark identifies as Kristol, Glazer, Podhoertz, and others – drove me straight into the arms of the Modern Liberals. Which is how I came to be here at Marc’s site.
Historically, the Classical Liberals and the Modern Liberals have formed the backbone of American politics. The Classical Liberals taking up a more conservative stance, and the Modern Liberals adopting a more progressive stance, as described by Clark. The Bush Years will go down in history as ‘doing a real number’ (yet not fully defined) on the American political landscape.
Frankly, I find the polar Right worrisome, and do what I can to ‘trim the ship’ toward the side of the polar Left. Although, there were days in class when I believed it possible for the leftmost arm of the Left to touch shoulders with the rightmost arm of the Right.
July 14th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Well, I guess I had to screw up a tag sooner or later.
Woody, I about fell off my chair laughing at: Liberals may not like conservatives, but they need them. You can’t live with them, and you can’t shoot them. Only Cheney can do that.
You could be almost right… I’d have written that second part to read: You can shoot ‘em, but you can’t kill ‘em. You only make them angry.