You are not required to donate, but if you haven’t already, please visit our donation page and Donate!
Your generous responses have helped us achieve our first six goals: essential IT, bonuses for our loyal guest writers, continued expanded linking, support for our comments section, providing burnout prevention, supporting our small team, and funding to expand our reach.
But we are not where we should be! I need to have enough cash saved up for next year, and I don’t have enough yet. Please do your part by donating to the tip jar.
Our seventh goal is funding for more original reporting. It may seem like a strange thing to have as an end goal. Shouldn’t we have asked for it sooner?
In fact, all of the previous goals are essential to keeping the site going. For example, rewarding regular writers is not just a way to recognize their dedication, but it also helps recruit new writers.
According to feedback from our readers, one of the things they particularly appreciate about Naked Capitalism is its unashamed coverage of financial, economic and, increasingly important, geopolitical news and the forces that drive them.
Although the worst-case scenario was averted thanks to the wonderful response from readers, As far as donations go, we’re still catching up. If you haven’t helped yet, please do so! The tip jar is beckoning.
Our seventh goal is funding for more original reporting. It may seem like a strange end goal to have; shouldn’t we have asked for it sooner?
In reality, all of the goals mentioned above are essential to running a site. For example, rewarding regular writers not only recognizes their dedication above and beyond the call of duty, but also helps encourage new writers to join. And many of you have said that links and a water cooler are “must-have” features.
Readers have told us that one of the things they especially appreciate about Naked Capitalism is its relentless coverage of financial and economic news and the forces that drive it. From Nippersmom:
Nippersdad and I don’t know what we would do without the propaganda-free reporting and insightful commentary we see all the time on NC.
And the biologist:
I will donate $100 to the tip jar. I sincerely thank you all for creating this truly wonderful public space. Thank you especially for your coverage of Latin American issues. Please stay strong (i.e. take a break to stay sane) despite all the attacks on press freedom.
And Michael M:
To everyone else, I want to thank you for your site and the insight you and your associates provide. I read your site daily. It is my main antidote to the disheartening disaster of our mainstream media and the poison of our nation’s corrupt and contemptuous Wall Street liberalism and neoconservatism. It saddens me that even my well-meaning friends have no qualms about accepting sources like the New York Times as their primary news source.
And Scott M:
I really appreciate the quality reporting, analysis and links you and your team provide every day. And your comments are great.
And Jan C:
I am sending a donation check for $100. Naked Capitalism is one of my main news sources, and I am more grateful than words can express.
One of the reasons we were able to exceed our expectations is the vast amount of high quality information provided by this community.
But while the site makes important contributions by analyzing news articles and adding expert opinion, our greatest impact comes through our original reporting. You’d be hard-pressed to find another site where we’ve driven so many officials out of their jobs, starting with SEC Executive Andrew Bowden looking for work for his son among the people he regulates.
We also forced CalPERS to disclose how much it pays through so-called carry fees, one of its largest fees, forcing change across the private equity industry. A guest speaker from CalPERS said that CalPERS’s fee and cost disclosures, which it only did because it was forced to, have swayed other public pension funds to get more serious about containing fees and costs. Hubert Horan’s Uber series finally prompted reporters to question the ride-sharing company’s foundations. We continue to cover how public pensions’ returns are not rising even as they continue to pour money into private equity strategies, even as rising prices and declining service, particularly in the vital health care industry, are increasingly covered in the media.
Lambert’s relentless COVID coverage has focused on the fact that COVID is airborne, and he has urged community members to practice defense in depth, which some feel has saved their lives. He continues to criticize terrible public health information amid a major COVID resurgence and the recent fight over mask bans. As the reader noted above, Nick covers Latin America primarily from an economic perspective, including Mexico’s backlash against genetically modified corn, and continues to show interest in digital currencies as a Trojan horse in the fight against cash. Connor has written extensive commentary on how Europe’s changing power dynamics stem from economic pressures, as his new article on the Draghi policy scheme shows. KLG covers many examples of how questionable scientific and medical research practices can have far-reaching effects.
I’d love to report more, but I understand why journalists get annoyed with bloggers. An independently reported story takes roughly 4-10 times more effort than a blog comment or analysis. Consider this example I shared previously: Example from Columbia Journalism Review :
In this economic environment, time-consuming, in-depth reporting is increasingly unlikely to be approved and attract fewer hits than lighter-weight stories. A recent Mother Jones report in which a senior reporter worked as a corrections officer for four months is a good example of this tension. This massive, 35,000-word report exposed corruption in private prisons, but cost a conservative $350,000 to produce and generated just $5,000 in banner advertising revenue.
Now, we have to admit that we have an advantage in that Naked Capitalism readers prefer more substantial content, but even so, original reporting not only requires a lot more detective work than news analysis, it also involves chasing leads that often don’t pan out, and it can also require significant cash outlays, such as paying lawyers to pursue FOIA requests.
So, that’s a long-winded explanation, but as mainstream media faces budget constraints and has become less bold overall, independent reporting is costly but increasingly important.
Again, our goal for the original report was $45,000. We’ve already raised $4,030 of that goal.
We’d like to thank everyone who has already donated for their generous support, and we hope that all NC fans who recently found out about this fundraiser will help make this site even more successful.
There are multiple ways to donate, the first is here on the blog. Tip JarClicking will take you to PayPa and our new payment service, Clover, where you can use your debit card, credit card, or PayPal funds (with PayPal, charges will be made in the name of Aurora Advisors).
You may also send a check made out to Aurora Advisors Incorporated (there is no processing fee for checks!).
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To ensure your donation is included in the total donations, please email yves@nakedcapitalism.com with “Check in the mail” in the subject line (and include only the amount you are sending in your message).
Donate to Naked Capitalism right now. $5, $50, $5,000. If you can’t afford it, give what you can. If you can afford it, give more. If you can give more, give more. It will pay for itself. It’s not just a donation, it’s a statement of wanting a different debate, a different society, a different culture. As one reader wrote, “a small investment in building our future together.”
