The Nation Needs Your Money. Like Now. Seriously.
A few weeks ago, we reported on The Nation‘s impending financial crisis and subsequent letter sent by the magazine’s editor and publisher Katrina Vanden Heuvel. We received another missive from her, virtually begging for assistance. In only five days, she says, the liberal stalwart will be forced to pay $500,000 in postage because of new regulations designed “in part by lobbyists for the Time Warner media conglomerate.” “The Great Postage Crisis of 2007″ is nearly upon us, but Vanden Heuvel says we can help by donating.
The entire letter:
- 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 we’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 I’m calling “The Great Postage Crisis of 2007.”
The Crisis, in case you haven’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 TimeWarner’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, I’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 Nation‘s editor since 1995 and publisher since 2005. Believe me, I’ve heard the stories of what The Nation has done to survive 142 years of publishing. Like in 1954, when the magazine’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 couldn’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,
Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation
EARLIER:
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online 
FishbowlNY Twitter feed loading...
