To: narconews@yahoogroups.com
From:Alberto M. Giordano <narconews@...>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:24:06 -0500
Subject: [narconews] 2006 Spring Offensive: Narco News Is "Going For Broke"

March 28, 2006
Please Distribute Widely

Dear Reader,

My late mentor Abbie Hoffman opined in his autobiography that early
in life we are faced with the choice of "going for the money or going
for broke." The almost six-year-old project that began as The Narco
News Bulletin has, each step of the way, chosen to go for broke: to
speak and report uncomfortable truths even when it could lead to
being sued by Mexican narco-bankers, threatened by Colombian
paramilitaries, or summarily dropped by North American
philanthropists who wanted to limit the scope of our investigations
within "safe" borders. All of those things and more have happened to
us over the past six years but each time we decided to "go for broke"
and take the more risky, if less popular, path wonderful things
happened in our América and the Authentic Journalism renaissance
thrived anew.

Kind reader: Today, in 2006, we are at that same crossroads again. We
have had to decide whether to maintain our steady stream of reports
"on the drug war and democracy from Latin America" on the modest
budget provided in tens and twenties and the occasional larger
contribution by readers, or whether to rise to the additional
challenge of offering the only consistent multi-lingual coverage of
the Zapatista "Other Campaign" that rumbles through Mexico this
spring. After more than 300 original reports, video newsreels and
translations since the first of January about that trek, as we have
also continued our news reporting from the rest of the hemisphere, we
are proud of what has been accomplished. But a consequence of "going
for broke" - we've been here before - is also, often, that we go
broke. And that's where we are. Flat broke. And yet we are here,
ready to report again, with our sometimes blind faith that, as Gandhi
said, "When the cause is just, the resources will come."

I have just spent my last $400 dollars to rent a newsroom in Central
Mexico from where our Road Team will cover the next month of
Zapatista Subcomandante's tour through the nearby states of
Michoacan, Morelos, Guerrero, the State of Mexico and Mexico City.
Two reporters, two camerapersons, three video editors, one video
director - all volunteering our labor - are at work here producing
the next wave of video newsreels. You may have read some of the
reports on which those newsreels will be based... From the Mexican
states of Yucatán, Oaxaca, Tlaxcala and Querétaro... and from here in
the Narco Newsroom we will also be able to monitor the story - and
translate its news - from the sidelines.

But - I ask you - do reporters and Authentic Journalists belong on
the sidelines when we could be your eyes and ears there as the masked
Subcomandante known as "Delegate Zero" convenes and listens to "the
simple and humble people who struggle" and weaves one big fight from
the many to shake the sleeping giant that is Mexico for years to
come? Or should we be there, again, already, on the scene, working
our fingers to the bone to break the information blockade? If you
believe, as I do, that you deserve to have honest correspondents
there to tell you the truth about the immediate history that occurs,
then I ask you to donate so we can rent a car, put some gas in the
tank, and get this Road Team back on the road.

There are three things you can do today (pick one, please) to make
that happen...

1. The fastest way for you to do that is to donate right now, online,
via The Fund for Authentic Journalism website, with your credit card:

http://www.authenticjournalism.org/

2. Or if you don't have a credit card, or have maxed out yours
already on other costs of living, you can mail a donation to:

The Fund for Authentic Journalism
P.O. Box 241
Natick, MA 01760

3. Or, if you have no money, if you have already "gone for broke"
like us, there is something else you can do: You can write a letter -
one like I am writing to you now - asking your friends, family,
neighbors and anyone else you can think of, explaining why you
believe this project in Authentic Journalism must continue, and send
me a copy at narconews@....

And if we like your letter, we will publish it here on Narco News,
and send it to our thousands of subscribers, so that your voice is
heard, too.

Do not worry if you misspell a word or two, or if you are not a
professional writer; none of that means anything and we will be happy
to look your letter over and make suggestions with an editor's eye as
to how to put it in publishable form. The fact is that letters from
little-known readers to other readers have historically been among
the most successful fund appeals we have published and emailed:
because such letters speak from the heart, and from the same side of
the screen where other readers exist.

You can read recent letters, for example, from Ben Melancon, Adolfo
Gilly, Stan Gotlieb, Dan Feder, Teo Ballvé, Oscar Olivera Foronda,
Sarahy Flores Sosa, Ellen and James Fields, Luis A. Gómez, Quetzal
Belmont, yours truly, and others at the page
http://www.authenticjournalism.org  for an idea of how it is done. In
addition to the fact that letters like those - like, potentially,
yours - do inspire folks to pitch in, we who are here in Latin
America doing the work of investigating, reporting, writing, filming,
audiotaping and editing really love to read those letters. They
inspire us to continue on. They help us to forget that we are, each
of us, going broke and getting older as we do this work. They remind
us of why we do it. And that, too, is a very important form of
donation and collaboration in this Other Journalism.

Later - soon, in fact - we will tell you about our hopes to report
along the US-Mexico Border when Subcomandante Marcos goes to Juárez
City and Tijuana for his historic meetings with Mexicans and Mexican-
Americans who live in the United States... The recent mega-marches
from Los Angeles to Chicago to scores of other cities in defense of
the dignity of immigrants and migrant workers in the U.S. provide a
boosting context to those much-anticipated gatherings in June. But
that is more than two months away and in the meantime we have to keep
our word to report the entire "Other Campaign" from the hometown of
Emiliano Zapata in Morelos to Acapulco to Mexico City and a lot of
forgotten places in between.

One thing is for sure: If we don't get there to report the news,
you're not going to read it in English anywhere else. The first three
months of this six-month "Other Campaign" in Mexico have already
proved that.

Yes, Narco News has over-extended it self. Again. And that means we
risk losing it all and having to close our doors. Again.

And so, again, I ask you to do one of three things:

1. Donate online at http://www.authenticjournalism.org

2. Send a check to The Fund for Authentic Journalism, P.O. Box 241,
Natick, MA 01760.

3. Or write an appeal that we can send to a few thousand of our
closest friends, while you send it to yours.

Once more, our backs are against the wall. We will either succeed in
this ambitious quest. Or we will die, as a web site, trying. The
difference between the first fate and the latter is in your hands.

Thank you for reading.

From somewhere in a country called América,

Al Giordano
Founder, Narco News
http://www.narconews.com/






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