Greet­ings all. Just a quick fund update. The Back to Iraq fund now stands at almost $1,700, which is fan­tas­tic ($1,683.71, to be exact.) Thanks every­one for your dona­tions.
Also, two reporters inter­viewed me today about being “the blogosphere’s first inter­na­tional war cor­re­spon­dent.” I don’t know about that, since I’m not there yet, but I think if I am, then I’m just going to be the first part of a wave of inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists using their blogs not merely as a per­sonal site or a par­al­lel to their pro­fes­sional life, but the main dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nel for their work, with funds raised from read­ers such as your­selves. Andrew Sul­li­van and Greg Palast are already feel­ing out the way, using their sites as a major com­po­nent of their career if not the main com­po­nent (I don’t know how much of Sullivan’s income comes from his site, but he has a pri­vate email list that you get for a year if you give $20. He also has ads on his site. Palast doesn’t seem to take ads or dona­tions on his site at all, so I guess his site is more pro­mo­tional than com­mer­cial.)
Another ques­tion I was asked was, “Why don’t you take ads?” and “Would you still be inde­pen­dent if some­one gave you a few thou­sand dol­lars?” Both good ques­tions. And the first one is eas­i­est to answer. The peo­ple who have donated did so because they believe in the con­cept of an ind­pen­dent jour­nal­ist who, like Caesar’s wife, is above even the appear­ance of reproach — or the influ­ence of adver­tis­ers. For that rea­son, because you have placed your faith in my report­ing with cold, hard cash, there will be no ads on this Back to Iraq. Ever.
As for the sec­ond ques­tion — the sit­u­a­tion where a wealthy donor comes in and drops $10,000 or what­ever on me — all I can say is “I wish.” OK. I can be flip because I know it’s highly unlikely that will ever hap­pen. Some­one donat­ing that much to me would be doing so because they approve of the idea of an inde­pen­dent journalist. If some rich lib­eral, who maybe hates Amer­ica, wanted to donate a lot of money — or hell, fund this ven­ture entirely — because he liked the idea of a scrappy jour­nal­ist going where the big boys go and pre­sent­ing a dif­fer­ent set of sto­ries, then hell yes, I’d take his money. But if that same donor gave money with the caveat that I had to go and “find all those atroc­i­ties that the U.S. troops are going to com­mit. Find me some Amer­i­can war crim­i­nals!” I’d have to say “no.” I’m per­fectly will­ing to check out rumors of a My Lai-type mas­sacre, but Yan­kee dol­lars won’t buy facts that don’t exist, nor will they pay for facts to go away that do.
Any­way, end of speech. Just wanted to get that off my chest.
Please remem­ber that if you donate via Ama­zon, be sure and tell me that you did. (There’s a lit­tle box to the right after you’ve com­peleted the trans­ac­tion that says “Tell the per­son you donated” or some­thing like that.) Ama­zon doesn’t pro­vide me with any con­tact infor­ma­tion, so I can’t add you to the mail­ing list, which is one of the main ben­e­fits of donat­ing.
Alter­nately, you can drop me an email and let me know. Be sure and include your name, email and amount. Also, if you’d like to be listed on the “Angel Investors” list on the right, let me know. Oth­er­wise I’ll assume you pre­fer anonymity.
Again thanks to every­one who donated. The plans are look­ing bet­ter and bet­ter, and I’m think­ing my orig­i­nal goal of $8,000 to $10,000 might not be nec­es­sary for a six week trip. Instead, $6,000 to $7,000 (with half from me, half from dona­tions) might be more in line, espe­cially if I can get some equip­ment donated. Speak­ing of my sav­ings, with my sav­ings, the total amount is almost $3,200. Again, thanks to every­one for their support.