C&L's Donation Drive '09: Please help save blogs before we're overrun by the corporate media
By John Amato Wednesday Jun 10, 2009 5:45am
We're reaching out to our readers and asking for your help so that the MSM and Corporate media do not overrun the blogosphere with Villagers. They are funneling in millions of dollars to compete with and ultimately drive away independent bloggers so that they can rule the Internet. And the kind of cash they are pouring in is staggering.
It's hard to compete with that since the economy is way down, and I think what we've accomplished is in jeopardy if the Internet doesn't step up to help us all, including other blogs that you like. So please donate what you can.
As you've seen, C&L has been expanding and improving the site and we need your help to continue to make more improvements and add more bodies to keep it going. We've released a host of new sites, including our Supreme Court blog Third Branch, the excellent Video Cafe, an expanded LNMC that is breaking new music and bringing music stars to our pages and finallythe very cool Newstalgia--which is posting the most extensive historic audio and video content on the web today. We've also released our first embeddable video player that now lets you embed all videos you see on C&L. This has taken a lot of time, effort and money to do, but we're succeeding. The economy is way down and it's affecting the blogs as well.
Our initial goal is to reach at least 50,000 dollars and the target is to get up to and beyond 100,000. I know this will take time and energy. As you've seen we're also reaching into the blogosphere and hiring bloggers to make C&L an even better site and to reward some of our own. The workload is tremendous. David Neiwert is now the managing editor and Susy Madrak has become a valued front-pager. Max Bernstein is handing the Late Nite Music Club and Gordon Skene is digging into his amazing time vault to bring us historical content that is relevant to today's news and Heather is leading the charge at Video Cafe. Now we're looking to hire video bloggers, a researcher, extra site monitors and an investigative journalist, but we can't do it without your help.
The money is going to be poured right back into C&L and into the hands of our own. It's a daunting task to keep the content flowing, even the MSM has recognized our efforts:
It's wild knowing that we've had over 200 million visitors and growing, so won't you please help us? You can also use snail mail to make your donation.
For Snail Mail:
Crooksandliars.com
P.O. Box 66310
Los Angeles, CA 90066
In 2008, C&L won the Weblog Award for Best Political Blog on the net too...
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You have no competition!! No one can touch C&L!! Huffpo is fast but they talk about Cher's ass more than anyhting. Huffpo is the Sarah Palin channel lately as well.
p.s. not that I really care but i was surprised no thank you email for the donation.
I will be sending TY's at a later date...And I'll post about it as well...
Might I suggest the Salon.com model.
Watch an ad for a free day pass. I'd gladly do it. And I'd also try to do business with your sponsors.
but I hate to clutter up the site and readers don't like that all that much, but I may be forced to put more advertising stuff on C&L....:-)
I don't think most people find the salon.com approach to advertising to be too much of a nuisance.
More advertising is okay but just make sure they don't try and meddle with the content!
If we each sent in a buck for every comment we make about BillO, Beck, Palin, Newt or Rush, you guys would be flush with $$ :)
I can't donate anything until friday...
will I be able to go back to this thread friday and donate?
Or is there another way to send ya'll cash moneys?
Done.
Sent you fat stacks of ecash.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tashk4iD0Vw&fe...
sign-up should instead get an e-mail with account validation link. This would slow the growth of group/spam accounts. Requiring ye who enter here to periodically re-sign-up until more control=more freedom is not too much for me.
The ability to run a report that shows a particular IP address that's being shared among different user names would show potential group use.
And why not only allow Posting access to either a static IP or a list of IP's per account. This would prevent a few masqueraders out there - at least for a while.
A C&L executable that validates MAC address(s) might work too.
As villagers or groups post I've noticed the endless "so and so is such a jerk" posts too often - we already know who's who in jerkdom.
Why not have a more selective Reply system that separates folks like me (song lyrics/youtube links) from volumes of analysis in text (politically aware/involved).
Large scale squatters may have figured out ways to turn the blogosphere into an "idea lobby" but C&L's antiquated Reply system is just what they're looking for.
You guys are wonderful. Keep it up.
this is the state of affairs, thankfully, my husband and I have good jobs that appear to be secure. Donation on the way.
C&L is the best! Been reading it since shortly after it was created.
I'll send something later this week.
Dear C&L,
First and foremost, the economy is not in the tank; if it were, why are there gazillions upon gazillions of dollars available to make movie franchises, stupid reality TV shows for every insanely irrelevant to ever exist, and to hype every sporting event on the planet?
What about intelligent television? Intelligent media? What about making the change we want rather than commenting on how we're all getting it up the ass from the Carlyle Group, Halliburton, Kellogg Brown & Root, Dynacorp and actually doing something about it?
I'll donate when C&L hosts some kind of in-depth analysis on 9-11; not a commentary, but news and facts, calling out the BS that the government has been force-feeding to us for eight years. I'll donate when C&L stops playing part in the bogus narrative of Republicans are conservative and bad and corrupt / Democrats are the progressive caring victims with no nuts.
If C&L is not like the MSM; prove it. When you do, then I'll donate.
Cyberhoop71
Dude, Ron Paul lost. The R3volution is over.
in intelligent television, intelligent media, how would they be able to dumb you down? C&L exists to help smarten you up.
Intelligent Design?
I swear the models in the NYT look like they need their faces washed off, followed by a spanking and then be forced to eat something more substantial than a Tic-Tac.
He actually has a couple valid points but C&L is a Democrat,
progressive, no conspiracy theory blog. Nothing will change it.
Partisan hackery is hackery no matter what side it comes from. Until 9/11 is addressed with honesty, there is no Hope.
"A lie is a lie no matter how many people believe it. Truth is the truth even if no one believes it."
I just contributed the money I saved by cancelling my subscription to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Something to thank John Yoo for! C&L is always there for me. I can't thank the team enough for all the hard work.
Maestro, I've recently been asking myself... how do they do it. As I synergistically hit the advertiser's shingle and or product button at a pace, that only xx&T will allow... with my particular DSL package. I often wonder if I'm helping the site, more then helping myself procure a mild form of carpal tunnel? :)
I allready owned the god DVD, prior to their grand showing at this site and I must say it is outstanding! Though I still click on their link... Don't worry though... I repent shortly thereafter.
Looking forward... upon looking back... my only concern would be duplication. It's content that counts... bottom line! At some point it'll be bells & whistles and Admin that will make the difference.
For Christ's sake, it's like playing scrabble trying to leave a frigging comment at Hippo's house. I'm not sure how you folks do it with such scant advertisement, but from what I've seen, I say keep on building it and they shall come!
In ending... I would like to thank the extremely effective SM's or as I call them... Digital Deputies and the rest of the staff for producing what I believe is a fine product. Though whenever possible I would suggest making an vigorous attempt to find common ground amongst us Human's and reduce the labeling. I believe it has been proven to cause collateral damage irregardless of intent.
If ya need help, please ask... we're in this together! Just be just...Onward → → →
Reduce labeling?
And put us categorizers out of a job?
Suck? :)
G, I dough no.
Thanks for your time.
I'm sorry, I thought you were offering me something... ooops.
Advertising is way down on the Internet so the economy is down and like most blogs, ads aren't coming in so I need your help...
we've had a great early response.
wait until next pay period.
I just hope you're not out of the burlap C&L logo bags, mugs, caps, t-shirts or hearts of space cassettes.
Seriously, this is the greatest political blog I've seen on the internet. I refer new people to here daily. The amount of growth and coverage C and L has experienced lately has also been fantastic.
Great writers and great opinions all while keeping the facts on the straight and narrow. Journalistic integrity has a new home on the internet.
Way to go John and company!
on it's way!
Every single big-media blogger will be a conventional-wisdom retard. It is a violation of physical law for even a single one of them to be slightly different (except Krugman). More money won't change that; it'll make it worse. More people won't change that; it'll make it worse.
We don't want to read conventional wisdom.
Besides blogad, you should have your own marketing department or at least one person soliciting ads from various avenues. There are lots of small businesses, who can benefit from the exposure at your site. AT&T and weight loss are okay but so would be a model train seller, whose ads are shown only when people log in from that particular area.
You might want to look into the technological aspect of advertising. Lately it has become less of an art and more of a science.
I do fair amount of reading at this blog and would be very sad if it went down. You can certainly add a lot more advertising and I am sure advertisers will realize that more people spend more time reading articles here than watching Fox and Friends.
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