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From Raw Story:



Help us help you: Support Raw Story, and give us your ideas
By Raw Story

As you've undoubtedly noticed, we've reverted to our previous front page design. But we've got some great news: a donor has generously said he'll double any contributions up to $3,000 to help us get the current site up to speed!The project of redesigning the site was aimed at giving the site a more respectable feel to make our content go farther. Obviously, though, we should have built around the strengths of the current site. Now we want to hear from you.

Prefer to donate by check? Send to: Raw Story, PO Box 21050, Washington, DC 20009

Here's where we're in a bind, and how you can help. We began the redesign process in 2007 (!) and ultimately fell out with our original contractor, then hired another independent contractor to program the new site in mid-2008. I think he's done an amazing job — most criticisms of the new site I saw were of design in nature, in which he was not involved. The back-end structure that cost about $35,000 to build is very, very solid compared to our existing site (which, if you saw the code that ran it, you'd want to cry).

This means we're halfway there. We've exhausted, however, our programming and design budget after these two tries — $60,000 over two years. Any additional programming without your support would mean cutting investigative reporting, and frankly, to me personally, I'd rather stick with the old site and continue the hard-hitting reporting we're known for until the day the old site crashes into the ground. Trouble is, the old site will crash into the ground — I can't even really edit the template anymore without coding line by line.

So here's where you come in. I've been loath to ask anyone for contributions over the past eighteen months as we got our new system done, because I felt I'd gone to the readers enough. So I paid for it out of our pocket as best I could. This put a drain on our investigative budget and, frankly, our ability to hire reporters and produce content.

Now, though, in recognizing how many people are so passionate about Raw Story, I'm eager to give you a chance to help. Underlying the idea of the new site was an effort to make selecting stories a collaborative process. What I didn't convey well was that it wasn't intended to be a purely voting based model — the votes would be edited by editors — and the stories vetted. I still believe a synergy in content generation that gives some say to the readers ultimately will be greatly beneficial to our readership. But the way we presented it didn't work.

I promise you this: Before making any other changes, we will give you a chance to comment on them in detail. What I foresee instead of wholescale change is sort of a “fusion” of the two sites, where the new features on the new site (voting, user registration, diaries) are added on to the existing site structure to enhance the user experience.

Here's how you can help:

One: Consider making a generous contribution in whatever amount you can afford. Donations of $50 or more will be paired with an ad-free account. To make a subscription donation, please email me at publisher@rawstory.com.

To donate by mail, send checks to: Raw Story, PO Box 21050, Washington, DC 20009

Two: Leave suggestions for enhancing the current (old site) on the comment thread at the end of this post (I'll leave it up for awhile and definitely get into exchanges with those who do to get more specifics). Include criticisms of the new site you didn't get to air, and compliments on parts of the new site that you think actually worked better.

Three: Support our advertisers, and encourage those who are in a position to advertise to do so — we have a great, educated, opinion-making political audience — and we occupy a niche that most advertisers simply cannot reach. If you're a local business owner, we can run ads for you targeted to your local market, down to the zip code, for any budget. Or, if you're wanting to promote an activist campaign, we can target any region you like.

Four: If you have design/CSS skills and want to help redesign the site on a part-time volunteer basis, email me at publisher@rawstory.com. Email me also if you're able to give us a discounted hourly rate, and what that discount might be. I think Raw Story will make a great portfolio piece once we're done.

Five: If you want to volunteer to design an iPhone app for Raw, or a mobile site, we'd be positively thrilled. Email me at publisher@rawstory.com.

What have we done since our last fundraiser? Well, of course, there's the new system, which we'll polish up to your liking. But we're also made, I think, major investigative strides and delivered dozens of awesome stories. Here are a few:

A governor leaves jail: After a series of Raw Story Investigates pieces on former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and subsequent media followup, Siegelman was released from prison on bail on March 29, 2009. Since his release, judges have struck down two of his convictions and he awaits sentencing on other charges. Raw Story was nominated for the Online News Award for Investigative journalism (the top online news award), small site, ranking among the top five pieces in the country for 2008. We proudly attended with major MSM outlets (where the New York Times' Editor Bill Keller spoke after winning an award for their Spitzer expose).

Raw challenges White House on wiretaps: On month ago, on April 9, Raw Story's Eric Brewer posed a question to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs about the White House's defense of secrecy in a warrantless wiretapping case. “Before he was elected, the President said that the Bush administration had abused the state secrets privilege,” Brewer asked. “Has he changed his mind?” “No,” Gibbs replied. “I mean, obviously, we're dealing with some suits, and the President will — and the Justice Department will make determinations based on protecting our national security.”
Raw exposes state secrets abuses: We've consistently tracked the Obama administration's use of the state secrets privilege, be it with Stephen Webster's piece on Obama using state secrets to keep the CIA's secret rendition program quiet; and my piece, Following Bush lead, Obama moves to block challenge to wiretapping program,” about a little-noticed Justice Department filing that employed new tactics to try to have suits seeking disclosure about the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. This battle continues.

Acquired secret Abramoff email: Raw's Larisa Alexandrovna acquired a secret email sent by fallen powerlobbyist Jack Abramoff in which he said that he had an agreement with an aide in Rove's office — just a month after Bush took office. We have an “agreement with her as to what we are going to ask her and when,” Abramoff wrote.

Delivered constant, high-end video coverage: We've added depth to our discussions of popular issues by bringing our Video Editor, Dave Edwards, into a bigger role in helping us identify the news. While also providing videos that demonstrate the ridiculousness of the media, Dave's been instrumental in our coverage of torture. Among my recent favorites: “Constitutional scholar says ‘God Help US‘ if US only gets 9/11 torture commission,” “Pentagon may have been ordered to cover up investigations” and “Senator: Bush officials in torture probe ought to be pursued.”

Exposed the plight of the forgotten: Running where the media has failed to walk, I highlighted a Human Rights First report which reveals that as many as several dozen detainees captured by the US may have been tortured to death — with eight of them proven. We also explored the possibility that insect torture may have been used on the children of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Thanks again for bearing with us through the redesign process and for giving such helpful feedback. And thanks for continuing to support us these many years — we're now in our fifth year, if you can believe that, and still growing strong. Consider showing your support with whatever generous contribution you can afford.

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