Print works! It works as a business proposition - our print readers [of the Mother Jones] not only provide revenue in the form of subs and ads, but they are a core part of our donor community; 10 percent give us a donation on top of their subscription; that's about the same rate as NPR gets from its listeners.
Clara JefferyBroadly speaking, in the past few years, we've more than doubled the editorial staff [in Mother Jones], as part of ramping up daily operations that have resulted in huge gains in audience, a slew of awards, new multimedia endeavors, and of course scoops like the 47 percent.
Clara JefferyWe've investigated the gun lobby and its political donations and how it spread the Stand Your Ground laws from Florida.
Clara JefferyWe do a lot of "capital I" important stories, but one I'd highlight is the work we've done on guns, not only for the acclaim it's gotten but also because it showcases all the different kinds formats we use. So we compiled a database of all the variables of all the mass shootings in America - work the government doesn't do, thanks to the NRA - which allowed us to surface patterns and make data visualizations of it.
Clara JefferyWe also had a beautiful feature where the writer used the story of two mentally ill relatives, one of whom killed his dad, to explore the history of how we deinstitutionalized the mentally ill, only to re-institutionalize them - but in jails and prisons. There's much more to come.
Clara Jeffery