Let’s Do It: Narco News Matching Grants Are Raised by Another $4,000

Donors Advise that We Ought to Ask for More to Be Able to Do More Reporting

By Al Giordano
Founder, Narco News

November 6, 2007

Three weeks after announcing the $5,000 matching grant from the Angelica Foundation, Narco News readers have reached the halfway point and donated more than $2,500 to The Fund for Authentic Journalism. Some said that that glass is now half full. Others said that the glass is still half empty. But Narco News readers and supporters George Salzman, Robert Eisenberg and Ryan Reid told us that the glass we put out there isn’t big enough to do the job that has to be done. And so they have pledged an additional $4,000 to be donated if you and other readers match that amount with smaller contributions.

And so our autumn 2007 fund drive graph (in the upper left corner of the page) now grows from its original $5,000 goal to a more ambitious one of $9,000. When met, the Narco News team will be able to bring you more investigative reporting and original translations of the underreported news from throughout our América. The good news is that, thanks to the generosity of these matching-fund pledge-makers, we have a shot of entering the upcoming New Year (with its notoriously difficult-for-fundraising holiday season) on a more stable footing. The challenge is that the ante has been raised for the rest of us: to donate or raise from others, now, almost $6,500 more today and in the days to come.

If you’ve already contributed to this fund drive, thank you and please consider setting as a goal bringing at least one new donor into the campaign from among your friends, family members, co-workers or colleagues.

And if you haven’t contributed yet, now is the time. Millions of readers come to Narco News to find the news that the corporate media won’t report, or, worse, will usually distort: about the Plan Colombia military intervention and its new illegitimate child, “Plan Mexico,” likely to cause millions more to flee into the United States because of the Colombia-style repression against social movements, dissidents and their family members.

You can make that contribution today, online, via The Fund for Authentic Journalism website:

http://www.authenticjournalism.org

Or you can send a check via mail to:

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

And please specify if, for your contribution of $20 or more, you would like a gift copy of Nancy Davies’ book, “The People Decide: Oaxaca’s Popular Assembly” (2007, Narco News Books), either with your check or by choosing the corresponding donation button on The Fund’s website. Davies continues updating that opus with regular commentaries from Oaxaca that are published here on Narco News.

Meanwhile, Bill Conroy’s investigative reports on corruption in US drug and law enforcement agencies along the Mexico border continue to break ground and get picked up, finally, by the mass media. Some credit him, others don’t, but most importantly is that Narco News has forced the story of the “House of Death” case and related reports onto the pages and airwaves of many media organizations that beforehand remained silent.

Laura del Castillo Matamoros and Dan Feder continue reporting the human rights violations that are caused by US policy in Colombia, as Greg Berger reports from Mexico on the authoritarian drift of the Mexican federal government, even as response to natural disasters such as the flooding that has covered 70 percent of the major city of Villahermosa, Tabasco.

And Joe Emersberger’s fact-checking reports on the crisis in Haiti recently caused the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) to retract and correct a previous report. Once again, as so many times before, Narco News is the most important media for keeping – or making – other media more accurate and honest.

Simply put, Narco News is a must-read publication for all who report on or analyze events in Latin America, but unlike the rest, we give it away for free to everyone that seeks it. Narco News doesn’t sell subscriptions or make our readers endure annoying advertisements or “pop-ups.” The only “subscription” – our email alerts list – comes free to anyone that requests it. How is it that after more than seven years we can still keep this free press free? It is thanks to those many readers of conscience that continue to kick in what you can afford – from $1 to $100 and sometimes more. All those smaller donations add up; today, to match larger ones.

So please join our autumn fundraising campaign today with your contribution of any size that will be doubled through the now $9,000 in matching grants that have been pledged. We’re now less than $2,500 away from being able to make good on the first matching grant of $5,000, and then we’ll move on to three more grants totaling $4,000 more. We’d like to get this done before the holiday season kicks in. So, again, you can make your donation right now online:

http://www.authenticjournalism.org

Or you can send a check:

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

And if you’ve already contributed, our continued thanks: please consider taking on the task of recruiting at least one new donor from among your contacts; of turning him or her on to Narco News and of doing the asking for us. Because that’s how we’ve always worked here, journalists and readers together, each pulling the heavy load of breaking the information blockade.

From somewhere in a country called América,

Al Giordano
Founder, Narco News

For more Narco News, click here.