Image by Allec Gomes.
CounterPunch was founded in 1994 on a simple principle: independent journalism must be accountable only to its readers. For more than 30 years, that has remained unchanged. We have no corporate sponsors, no government funding, and no support from foundations with strings attached. Our allegiance is solely to our readers. But these are unprecedented times – the game has changed on a massive scale. In the early days, we occasionally faced lawsuits, but our most persistent enemy was errant mail machines, which would chew off corners or crumple the newsletters. Welcome to the 2020s: we’re up against virtual BOTS. Daily. Hourly. Bots harvesting the CounterPunch archives. Bots attacking our ecommerce. Bots trying to find a way in to take us down.
Then there are the intentional hackers who want to disable the website. But the biggest enemy of all: those who want to see the left media dissipate into ancient history, and be replaced by the disinformation machine we call “mainstream media”. The powers that be have their eyes on us and they want to destroy CounterPunch. They don’t want to see us reporting the horrors of Gaza. They don’t want us to expose the power and evil in Washington and around the globe. They don’t want us to reveal the environmental catastrophes they make in the name of nothing more than greed and power. The perils of the fascist state are upon us: bills are being passed, threats are being made, news outlets are being shut down, shows are being cancelled, lawsuits are raining down, and journalists are being killed. We need our readers’ support more than ever. We cannot do it alone. Together we are stronger.
Reader contributions keep us independent and sustain everything you see at CounterPunch: the reporting and analysis on the site; an index of over 250 freely available CounterPunch Radio episodes, thirty years of searchable archives, and our weekly news updates highlighting the not-to-miss pieces written solely for the CounterPunch website. Some ask: Why be afraid of corporate advertising and support? The answer is: independence matters! It allows us to investigate the powerful without fear of losing backing. It will enable us to publish what others won’t. It enables us to amplify voices and movements that have been ignored or silenced by mainstream media.
Without your support, CounterPunch would cease to exist: it is the foundation that keeps CounterPunch alive. Every contribution goes directly to funding the work.
Only together can we ensure CounterPunch will continue to do what it was founded to do: tell the stories that need to be told. CounterPunch is not a small staff of dedicated employees. It is not an international cadre of writers. It is not a global community of readers. It is not the dedicated donors. It is all of us, and only by recognizing the key role we all play and continuing to support one another will we survive the onslaught.
This year we are asking each of you to donate what you can. Please don’t assume you are the only one who will not donate: our average fund drive sees donations from less than a ½ percent of our annual readers. Most of us are feeling the pain of the failing economy and are just getting by, but if we all pitch in what we can, we can help sustain the causes that are most important to us!
We make donating simple: one-time or recurring, by card or e-check, via PayPal or Venmo, or by mail. We also offer non-cash donation options for those who can consider donating a car, using a DAF, stocks, or cryptocurrency. If you are interested in making a legacy donation, we can assist you with that as well. Please feel free to call our business office with questions or for assistance today.
The post We’re On Shakey Ground appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
From CounterPunch.org via this RSS feed