Mother Jones

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Mother Jones

• Portrait of a Killer Serial
• By
• Melissa Peabody

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The Magazine
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Departments

• Editors Note
• Contributors
• Backtalk
• Outfront
• Exhibit
• Power Plays

• The Slant
• The Commons
• Notebook
• Exposure
• Media Jones
• Re Action
• P.S.

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More MoJo

• Mother Jones Archives
• MoJo at 25 Anthology

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An Interesting Rag

• Mother Jones Magazine was started in 1976 by The
  Foundation For National Progress.
• It received three awards in its first four
  years of publication.
• In 1993 it became the first general interest
  magazine to go online.

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Shrinking Pains

• Mother Jones sales dipped during the eighties
  due both to the popular conservatism of the
  Reagan years, and the magazines own sales
  tactics.
• By 1988 MoJo was 300,000 in the hole and just
  trying to make payroll.

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The Jaws of Life

• Founding Member Jeffrey Klein took the helm from
  1993-1999 by the time he left, the magazine was
  back on firm financial ground.
• Roger Cohn took over in 2000 He plans to bring
  Mother Jones back to its investigative reporting
  roots (Political advocacy is not on the agenda.).

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Mother Jones Alive and Kicking

• Under Roger Cohns guidance, readership is up.
• People in their 20s are reading Mother Jones.
• In 2001 Mother Jones won the National Magazine
  Award in the General Excellence category.

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MoJo is a Many Splendored Thing

• Mother Jones
• Mojo Wire
• MoJournal
• Mother Jones Television.

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MoJo Wire

• For those wired into the net, Mother Jones offers
  MoJo Wire a e-version of the magazine that
  offers articles not found in print form.
• MoJournal is a free news service by MoJo Wire. It
  is an emailed text file that re-caps the weeks
  news.

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Mother Jones TV

• Jay Harris executive director of the Foundation
  for National Progress and publisher of Mother
  Jones, has started Mother Jones TV.
• MoJo TV is doing investigative reporting on a
  contract basis. It has supplied material to
  Inside Edition and PBS Frontline.

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The People Behind the Name

• Editors
• The Foundation for National Progress.
• The Foundations that fund the Foundation.
• Loans

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The Editors

• 1976-(1980?)--Adam Hochschild
• 1980-1986-- Dierdre English
• 1986-1992--Doug Foster
• Briefly in 1992--Michael Moore
• 1993-1999--Jeffrey Klein
• 2000-present Roger Cohn

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FNP

• CharityAmerica profile of FNP

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Follow The Money

• The Samuel Rubin Foundation
• The Boehm foundation
• The ARCA Foundation
• The Joyce Foundation

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IPA

• Loans to Mother Jones
• Distributing Mother Jones

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Influence

• The Magazine influenced public policy with its
  expose of the Pinto.
• It published an article about US military bases
  in Saudi Arabia when others would not. Making
  information accessible cannot help but influence
  public policy.

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Importance

• Mother Jones is an important magazine because its
  investigative reporting has led to the recall of
  the Pinto.
• It is important because there are not many
  magazines that are not owned by Rupert Murdoch or
  AOL/Time-Warner.
• It is highly regarded by peers in the publishing
  industry.

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This is the
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