Mr. Wilson Goes to Washington
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I'm sure you're all familiar with the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It's a classic tale. A freshman U.S. Senator named Jefferson Smith, played by James Stewart, goes to Washington, D.C., full of hope and idealism. He tries to pass a bill to create a national outdoor camp, but it is shot down by corrupt politicians who are after the same land to dam a river. He tries using the press to tell his story, but he is shut down by a powerful mainstream newspaper publisher who also owns radio stations and is behind the graft scheme. Mr. Smith filibusters in the Senate and wins in the end with the help of a sympathetic woman Senate staffer and her friend, a reporter.
Well I'm no Senator, but I am a reporter, and used to write for some of the biggest names in the newspaper business, including the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and the Dallas Morning News. Prior to that I taught journalism at universities and conducted quantitative academic research with a specialty in media effects on public opinion. Before that, I free-lanced for magazines and wrote for smaller newspapers, where I learned how to use my position as a journalist to make democracy work.
About 12 years ago, disgruntled with the performance of the mainstream media in America in covering public affairs, and disappointed with the capitalistic nature of academe, I started publishing independenly on the web. I now edit and publish the New American Journal online at NewAmericanJournal.Net.
Last year I published a book about my experiences. You can check out the book and buy it online in Amazon Kindle form or in paperback here: Jump On The Bus: How the Independent Web Press Could Save American Democracy.
For the past three years, I have been traveling back and forth from a base operation in the South to and from Washington, exploring ways to live and work inexpensively on the road and operate out of a media camper van. I'm not a greedy person and I love the great outdoors. Covering science and the environment are among my specialties.
But the greatest challenge we face today in American journalism is how to live up to the mission set forth in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to cover not just both sides in politics, but public affairs in a way that truly helps the public find out what's really going on.
Since the mainstream media helped Donald Trump win the presidency last year by covering his every statement and Tweet as if his crazy point of view had legitimacy, there has been much talk on Facebook and elsewhere about "fake news" and how that helped Trump win the election. We now know that Trump's chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, formerly of the alt-right Breitbart News, and Trump, were funded by libertarian conservative Robert Mercer, who gave Bannon $11 million to use his news outfit to help turn the country to the right for Trump and against Hillary Clinton. We still do not know the full extent of Trump's connections to Russia. There are several ongoing investigations into that controversy.
But it is safe to say the MSM played its own role in leading us to this distressing point in our history. It has been my mission and is still my goal to try to get people to understand that we need a new media model in this country if we are ever going to avoid this pattern of two steps forward, one step back. I know how to do this. Yet I cannot do it without your help and support.
That's why I am asking for you to help fund this modest proposal to pay for my expenses to make the trip back to DC this summer. I should be asking for $11 million like Bannon, or at least $1 million or maybe $100,000. If you've got it and want to invest it, I'll take it and put it to good use.
But for now, I have the experience of knowing I can do more with less. I once helped stop a dam on a free flowing river with a budget of $4,000 when the PR firm promoting the dam had $450,000. I am used to winning from the point of view of an underdog.
When we reach this modest goal of raising $2,500, I will most likely keep this GoFundMe going as a long-term way for readers to support the alternative, independent Watchdog Web Press. We already have a where readers can send us donations.
With this GoFundMe campaign, however, we can be specific about what we need and how much it is projected to cost. So here is the breakdown.
Gas
First we need to raise the money to pay for the camper van gas and oil to get to Washington in May, to operate there for four months or so, and get back to Mobile in October. A detailed calculation based on the size of the gas tank, the average price of gas, the gas mileage rate and the number of miles involved, I need about $1,106 for gas and oil.
Basic Expenses
At this time I am already paying a little more than $100 a month for an iPhone with a built in WiFi Hot Spot. So we need about $400 to cover that for this trip.
I am also paying about $50 a month for auto insurance, so I need $200 for this time period.
We also pay about $150 a year for domain names and a server hosting package. Your donation will help support that and ensure that we stay in business publishing online.
Thank You for Your Support!
I want to thank you all for supporting this trip in advance. I sincerely appreciate it and believe you are doing the right thing, since the old model of selling subscriptions and advertising is not getting the job done these days to fund the press we need.
If Steve Bannon can get Donald Trump elected president with Robert Mercer's money, imagine what we could do with a fraction of that money?
Read more about this here:
How We Are Going to Fund the New Free Press
Well I'm no Senator, but I am a reporter, and used to write for some of the biggest names in the newspaper business, including the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and the Dallas Morning News. Prior to that I taught journalism at universities and conducted quantitative academic research with a specialty in media effects on public opinion. Before that, I free-lanced for magazines and wrote for smaller newspapers, where I learned how to use my position as a journalist to make democracy work.
About 12 years ago, disgruntled with the performance of the mainstream media in America in covering public affairs, and disappointed with the capitalistic nature of academe, I started publishing independenly on the web. I now edit and publish the New American Journal online at NewAmericanJournal.Net.
Last year I published a book about my experiences. You can check out the book and buy it online in Amazon Kindle form or in paperback here: Jump On The Bus: How the Independent Web Press Could Save American Democracy.
For the past three years, I have been traveling back and forth from a base operation in the South to and from Washington, exploring ways to live and work inexpensively on the road and operate out of a media camper van. I'm not a greedy person and I love the great outdoors. Covering science and the environment are among my specialties.
But the greatest challenge we face today in American journalism is how to live up to the mission set forth in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to cover not just both sides in politics, but public affairs in a way that truly helps the public find out what's really going on.
Since the mainstream media helped Donald Trump win the presidency last year by covering his every statement and Tweet as if his crazy point of view had legitimacy, there has been much talk on Facebook and elsewhere about "fake news" and how that helped Trump win the election. We now know that Trump's chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, formerly of the alt-right Breitbart News, and Trump, were funded by libertarian conservative Robert Mercer, who gave Bannon $11 million to use his news outfit to help turn the country to the right for Trump and against Hillary Clinton. We still do not know the full extent of Trump's connections to Russia. There are several ongoing investigations into that controversy.
But it is safe to say the MSM played its own role in leading us to this distressing point in our history. It has been my mission and is still my goal to try to get people to understand that we need a new media model in this country if we are ever going to avoid this pattern of two steps forward, one step back. I know how to do this. Yet I cannot do it without your help and support.
That's why I am asking for you to help fund this modest proposal to pay for my expenses to make the trip back to DC this summer. I should be asking for $11 million like Bannon, or at least $1 million or maybe $100,000. If you've got it and want to invest it, I'll take it and put it to good use.
But for now, I have the experience of knowing I can do more with less. I once helped stop a dam on a free flowing river with a budget of $4,000 when the PR firm promoting the dam had $450,000. I am used to winning from the point of view of an underdog.
When we reach this modest goal of raising $2,500, I will most likely keep this GoFundMe going as a long-term way for readers to support the alternative, independent Watchdog Web Press. We already have a where readers can send us donations.
With this GoFundMe campaign, however, we can be specific about what we need and how much it is projected to cost. So here is the breakdown.
Gas
First we need to raise the money to pay for the camper van gas and oil to get to Washington in May, to operate there for four months or so, and get back to Mobile in October. A detailed calculation based on the size of the gas tank, the average price of gas, the gas mileage rate and the number of miles involved, I need about $1,106 for gas and oil.
Basic Expenses
At this time I am already paying a little more than $100 a month for an iPhone with a built in WiFi Hot Spot. So we need about $400 to cover that for this trip.
I am also paying about $50 a month for auto insurance, so I need $200 for this time period.
We also pay about $150 a year for domain names and a server hosting package. Your donation will help support that and ensure that we stay in business publishing online.
Thank You for Your Support!
I want to thank you all for supporting this trip in advance. I sincerely appreciate it and believe you are doing the right thing, since the old model of selling subscriptions and advertising is not getting the job done these days to fund the press we need.
If Steve Bannon can get Donald Trump elected president with Robert Mercer's money, imagine what we could do with a fraction of that money?
Read more about this here:
How We Are Going to Fund the New Free Press
Organizer
Glynn R Wilson
Organizer
Mobile, AL
