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We interrupt your reading to make a pitch for money
By Bev Conover
Online Journal Editor & Publisher
Aug 10, 2007

The kitty is getting mighty thin, but the bills have to be paid and it's only through your generosity that I can pay them. So please make a secure credit card donation today or email editor@onlinejournal.com for a mailing address if you wish to send a check or money order.

Online Journal is an alternative to the corporate media and you need alternatives more than ever if we are to have any hope of reversing the madness emanating from Washington and the corporations bent on ruling the world and enslaving the people.

If you think what you're seeing on television now is bad, wait until the new season kicks in. Just when you think television can't sink any lower, it does. Now NBC News President Steve Capus is telling us, " “There have been times in the past where the news category was viewed too narrowly." That by sexing up more what passes for news: “This is expanding the definition of what a news division has to offer.”

And, horror of horrors, the old geezers who watch the CBS Evening News are stuck in a rut. Says who? Steve Battaglio, senior correspondent for TV Guide. In defending the mess anchor Katie Couric made of the CBS Evening News, Battaglio said on Countdown with Keith Olbermann (July 9), "She tried to do something new and different on the broadcast that was immediately rejected because she is dealing with a program which has the most traditional audience in television. They are older. They like their news in a certain way. They are not on the Internet all day."

How dreadful that people of any age want news and information they can sink their teeth into, not mindless pap. But it's more mindless pap that the corporate media are going to serve up -- more Paris, more Brittany -- interspersed with a constant diet of "al Qaeda," and "terrorists" who "hate us for our freedoms." Can you say Faux News clones?

Yet, Battaglio admitted that even what Dan Rather was delivering was not satisfying to his shrinking audience. Moreover, that NBC's Brian Williams' audience is shrinking, as well.

So, with the corporate newspapers not being much better, where are the people going for news and information? They, including those old geezers, are going to the Internet and feisty independent publications with an attitude, such as Online Journal, supported by their readers not corporate or foundation dollars that come with strings attached.

Someone suggested that I post a wish list. My wish list is very short: 1) I wish to pay Online Journal's monthly bills; 2) I wish to pay for repairs and replacement of equipment; 3) I wish there was a steady stream of revenue so that I could pay needy reporters; 4) It would be nice if I were compensated for my time and work.

Of all the black periods in American history, this is the blackest. With a corporate media that has sold out to the power brokers, with a Congress, White House and a courts that have turned a deaf ear to the people, we are on the verge of becoming a fascist police state. All that stands between us and that horror are the independent publications on the Internet and it's up to you to keep them going with your dollars. Online Journal needs your ongoing support, so please make a donation of $10 or more today or, if you can afford it, making that a recurring monthly donation.

To all those who have kept Online Journal going for nearly nine years, my thanks and deepest appreciation.