Good News: Your Donation Is Now Officially Deductible, and Is Needed Today

The Fund for Authentic Journalism Receives Tax Exempt Status from the IRS

By Al Giordano
Publisher, Narco News

April 15, 2008

I’ve been back in the Narco Newsroom for a couple of weeks now, which, thanks to Dan Feder and the rest of the team, continued breaking the information blockade from Latin America during my leave of absence.

And – lo’ and behold – in the in-box, The Fund for Authentic Journalism, which supports our work, passes on a letter it received from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) last December with the great news that The Fund is now approved as a tax-exempt charity. It says:

“We are pleased to inform you that upon review of your application for tax exempt status we have determined that you are exempt from Federal income tax under section 501 ( c ) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to you are deductible under section 170 of the Code. You are also qualified to receive tax deductible bequests, devises, transfers or gifts under section 2055, 2106 or 2522 of the Code….”

If you’ve donated to The Fund since January 1, 2006, you can deduct all those contributions from your taxes, too.

This really is wonderful news, because it opens the door to receive grants to support our journalism projects, our journalists and to bring back the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, which has trained and introduced so many excellent journalists across the hemisphere.

Friday, April 18, will mark eight years since Narco News was born. The last nine months are testimony that the project of reporting the drug war and democracy from Latin America has grown way beyond one journalist’s work, and continued to thrive even when this journalist had other obligations.

Of course, we haven’t asked for your support since last year: Your contributions in the 2007 fund drive kept gas in the tank for the first four months of 2008. But even our modest budget now needs replenishing to drive on into the coming weeks and months. And so if you’re a longtime supporter, or a new one, we need to ask for your help again. Please consider sending a donation to celebrate our eighth birthday – which comes on Friday – today.

You can do that right now, online, by clicking this link:

http://www.authenticjournalism.org/

Or you can send a check made out to “The Fund for Authentic Journalism” to this address:

The Fund for Authentic Journalism
PO Box 241
Natick, MA 01760 USA

Last week I was in Mexico City where I was fortunate to see an old friend, former US Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who introduced me to a colleague from Haiti. As we were talking, I mentioned that one of the graduates of the Narco News J-School had gone there, learned to speak Hatian-French Creole, and is now the television news correspondent in Haiti for Telesur.

“Reed?” he smiled. “Reed Lindsay? He’s the only journalist reporting the truth about what is happening there!”

Of course that made me very proud, and that’s a pride that I hope you share. Because this project not only continues to get better and better in terms of Narco News’ own reporting, but also has helped raise the standards of journalism across our América through many news organizations where our graduates today do this important work.

It’s no exaggeration at all to observe that, in the eight years since April 18, 2000, people in the United States and throughout the world are much better informed about events throughout this hemisphere than ever before. Our existence has limited the ability of foreign correspondents and commercial media organizations to distort the news as badly as they were able to do before our arrival, and has trained and equipped new talent to work for them and for us.

Of course, we have a long way to go before simulation and distortion – and the manipulation of news organizations by government and industry – are no longer the norm for journalism here and elsewhere. North Americans and people throughout the world may be better informed today about events from Mexico to Bolivia to Venezuela to Colombia and back to the US Border, but the “Information Curtain” still exists, and there’s still more bad and untruthful reporting out there than good.

As the Bush administration in Washington plots a multi-million dollar scheme called “Plan Mexico” – to bolster the anti-democracy forces of repression there as it has done with “Plan Colombia” for the first part of this century – we, at Narco News, need to expand our reporting in both lands – and elsewhere – to bring the news that is still hidden out into the light.

But our bank account is empty (once again) and so, now as before, we turn to you, kind reader, and ask you to keep us going.

So, please, give as generously as you can, via this link:

http://www.authenticjournalism.org/

Or via snail mail to this address:

The Fund for Authentic Journalism
PO Box 241
Natick, MA 01760 USA

To those of you that have donated in the past, and that will donate today, this is your international online newspaper, too, and so the “happy birthday” also belongs to you.

From somewhere in a country called América,

Al Giordano
Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com
narconews@gmail.com

For more Narco News, click here.