The Nation magazine is in a pickle.  It spends $1 million more than it makes and Chris Hayes, The Nation's Washington editor, was asked to send out an email to readers to bridge the gap.  So he did.  And the folks at Politico.com were kind enough to post it for the world, with a link to the fundraising site.

What do you think about that?   I like that there are diverse political magazines but is capitalism just culling the herd?   I am not inclinced to subscribe now (though I already did not) and I don't know if National Review has ever made money but I have never heard of them mass mailing the Internet for help either.   That is a sign of instability.   Advertising is down, but not off the map.  Heck, we had a good year in advertising but then hit an issue we never expected to hit - advertisers go out of business and don't pay you.   According to Comscore, ad impressions online were up 21% last year and online spending was a hefty $209.6 billion, though down from the year before.   Not bad for a recession.   Still, one issue we run into is that very large media companies are now competing in areas against us where they ordinarily would not.  Print science magazines say they are king but they are discounting like crazy and throwing in online ads for free.

But The Nation is feeling a real pinch.   Here is what your support can bring, says Hayes:

$35 buys me dinner with a confidential source in New York

$75 pays for an interpreter for a reporter researching a story in Afghanistan

$150 covers an Amtrak ticket to Washington so a writer can testify before Congress

$300 buys a labor reporter's ticket to Detroit for a piece on unemployment

$500 (expenses extra) rewards a brilliant article by a young journalist on Tehran dissidents.

Why are their journalists testifying to Congress?  Not really sure.  And why does The Nation hand out $500 to a journalist for writing a piece a rather subjective (I mean, this is The Nation, they are not objective) editor happens to like, since that is why they get a salary?   Not sure either, though bonuses at least have precedent.

But they may be on to something by appealling to the masses so I am going to put a donate button in this article, since we lost money (see above) last year also, and see how it goes.  For non-writers here (since they get paid), and below is what you can get if you contribute.

In true Nation spirit, 

For a $30 donation, you will get a Scientific Blogging coffee mug of your choice.

For a $50 donation, you will get a Scientific Blogging t-shirt of your choice. 

For a $100 donation, you will never see another ad on this site (well, no paid outside ad: you will see our writer book list, t-shirts and internal articles) and get a Scientific Blogging t-shirt.

For a $150 donation, you get your very own Bloggy and never have to see ads again.

For a $300 donation you get the $150 gift plus we will commission an article from an expert on a topic of your choice.

Sure, none of those gifts carries the cachet of interviewing Iranian dissidents but it's a cute bear and we're the only ones of any size that aren't owned by a media company so you're helping keep science real.   Political writers and their audience genuinely feel like if they fail it's because of reasons unrelated to quality whereas I know quality is king but sales is the court jester that can bring anyone down.