Mother Jones Magazine

Eric Kallgren    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 11:25pm on Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Nonprofit journalism works for Mother Jones.

On March 24, 2009, Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote about the success of the business model of Mother Jones:

"In Mother Jones' case, going nonprofit was more of a philosophical choice than an economic necessity. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, a group of investors wanted to create an investigative publication that was less constrained by market and advertiser pressures. The ensuing three decades haven't always been easy for Mother Jones. But the magazine is poised to weather the current recession better than many other publications - and its journalism is thriving.

Last week, it was announced as a finalist for three National Magazine Awards, including one in the general excellence category and another for online journalism. Last year, it won in the general excellence category for its circulation category (it has 230,000 bimonthly subscribers).

The magazine is getting more mainstream buzz than it has in the past. Its Washington bureau chief, David Corn, is a regular commentator on MSNBC. On Saturday, Rachel Maddow - the Castro Valley native and rising star of her own MSNBC show - will headline a San Francisco fundraiser that is expected to raise $100,000 for Mother Jones. (The event is sold out.)

And now the magazine's leaders are fielding calls from industry peers interested in how a nonprofit model might work. Mother Jones met its financial goals in 2008, but its advertising revenue is down 14 percent in 2009 compared with the same period a year ago. But advertising is only 15 percent of Mother Jones' total revenue stream. Half of its funding comes from contributions, and 35 percent is from circulation. So far, reporters haven't been laid off, other than one whose work was funded by a grant."

Hannah    Boulder, CO

Posted at 3:13pm on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

A few issues back in Mother Jones I read the article/issue concerning revamping nuclear energy in the US. Did anyone else read that article? I also went to the Conference of World Affairson the University of Colorado campus and an editor of Mother Jones and some serious anti-nuclear activists were on a very spicy interesting panel about pros and cons of nuclear. If anyone read the article do you think it told the whole story?