Robert Parry: Please Help Get Our Books to Libraries

[L. Coyote]

http://consortiumnews.com/2009/051909.html
From: "Consortiumnews.com" <.. democracyinaction.org>
Robert Parry, Editor

Over the years, one of the most common complaints I've received at Consortiumnews.com is why our original reporting doesn't reach a wider audience.

My response is that we do our best with a very limited budget. We send out thousands of e-mails to announce stories; we permit "aggregator" sites to re-post our stories free of charge; and we compile much of the important information into books.

But we also need help from our readers. Indeed, what the current crisis in American journalism really means is that the era of passive news readership is over. We can no longer count on the New York Times or the evening news or the big publishing houses or the chain bookstores to supply the knowledge that a healthy democracy needs.

It is no longer enough for readers to be news consumers; they have to help in a variety of ways for information to get to the broader public.

Obviously, one way is financial support, which is why our Web site became a tax-exempt non-profit so people could make tax-deductible donations. Another way is to forward our story e-mails to friends who might be interested in our information.

A third way is to make sure that the books that we produce through our publishing arm, The Media Consortium, are available to people across the United States.

So, as part of our 3-for-1 book offer (for only $25), I suggested that our readers buy a set of books and contribute them to the permanent collections of local or school libraries. I thought that by distributing 1,000 book sets this way, we could accomplish several useful goals:

First, the valuable information in Lost History, Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep would be available to many thousands more Americans.

Second, $5 from each purchase would go to Consortiumnews.com's coffers so we could continue paying our writers for their work and keep the Web site alive.

Third, selling more of these books would enable me to produce a new book, now in the planning stages. The book would describe the key turning points over the last four decades that have brought the United States to today's political crisis. (The book will only happen if our readers want it to happen.)

So far, my library-book proposal has generated orders from only a handful of readers. Many, many more are needed for this effort to succeed.

I know it may seem odd for journalists to turn directly to readers for the support needed to do our jobs. But that is now the world we live in. Only an engaged people can change today's political and media climate. Only an engaged people can make the democracy work.

To help on this endeavor, all you have to do is send a check for $25 (which includes $5 for shipping and $5 to the Web site) to:

The Media Consortium; 2200 Wilson Blvd.; Suite 102-231; Arlington VA 22201.

Tell us the address for delivering the books. (We can ship them directly to the libraries, but it's more effective if you submit them as a local citizen.)

Other payment options include sending us your Visa/Mastercard data by mail.

Or you can submit your payment as a donation to Consortiumnews.com, but in that case, you must send us an e-mail - to [e-mail] - explaining that you want the payment to go for the 3-for-1 offer and telling us where to ship the books.

Thanks for your support.

Robert Parry, Editor

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s ......

[Mnemosyne]

1. KnR for a true patriot! n/t

[L. Coyote]

2. Indeed. Truth First!!

[Mnemosyne]

3. Clarity rules, even when it sucks. n/t

[Gabi Hayes]

4. another thing you can do, which works fairly often for me:

call the library and request his books be ordered

I first heard of him while browsing there one day, and found Fooling America, the first book I read on the failure of big media to do its job

I've requested quite a few books to my library that have been subsequently bought...dunno if my asking them had anything to do with it, but a person there told me it often only took one or two requests for them to buy things