Or: I’m a Republican. Why the hell should I buy you a coffee, ya freeloader? Go get a job and buy your own damn coffee! I do my donating at church!
That’s what you’re thinking. I know because that’s the way I thought about it for a lot of years. Why should I pay for news when I get it for free? Why pay for a newspaper when I can just read it on their website? After all, I pay enormous sums for cable T.V., not to mention two different streaming services; CNN gives me news for free so everyone should!
Incidentally: There’s a reason I’m picking on Republicans, and it’s not because they have more money. It’s that generations of Democrats have been raised on public television and N.P.R. They’re used to having people explain to them, with varying levels of patience, that if they don’t get money there will be no more programming. And, quite often because they like Mr. Rogers, Car Talk, and A Prairie Home Companion (none of which exists anymore), they or their parents would make a pledge. A few of them have donated here in the past, and some continue to do so even in these economic tough times. I’m very grateful.
Most of these donations, however, have dried up.
But that’s me, and this isn’t just about me. The important information here is that donations have about dried up for everyone. The only perennial winners are political parties (now spending more than ever before), churches (more than 31% of charitable giving in this country), and scam artists, who are raking in tons of your money in exchange for nothing. In fact, right now, there are sites pretending to sell closeout inventory from Bed, Bath, and Beyond that are doing just that. They look very professional. Don’t be fooled.
(That’s a sample of the value I add. Remember it later on.)
There’s a difference between public television and what we do here. For one thing, many of us taxpayers no longer go past that minimum standard deduction, so charitable giving isn’t deductible anymore. Giving to N.P.R. used to be tax-free, and paying less on taxes is always a pleasure. I’ve heard it described as the patriotic duty of all Americans: If there’s an exemption or a deduction, the logic goes, then it exists because the government wants you to do it. It’s reasoning like this that’s kept soup kitchens well-stocked for generations.
Donating to an artist, or a blog like this, well, it’s probably not deductible. That’s because we’re not actually government-approved charities. In order to qualify for that, you’ve got to file the proper forms, pay fees amounting to a few hundred dollars a year, and provide a benefit either to the members or the community as a whole. While I qualify as a nonprofit on all the other counts, if I were to pay the necessary fees there’d be no money left for coffee.
The same holds true for independent comic artists, non-celebrity podcasters, and pretty much all other online content producers. They provide a product but don’t charge you. They let you decide what it’s worth to you, and you can choose to pay it or not. If enough people give, they’ll continue to produce; if not, they’ll get a second job to supplement their minimum wage paycheck, and we’ll lose out on some amazing art but have one more pair of hands at the grill at McDonald’s.
Unfortunately for many of these artists, giving of this sort has dried up almost completely in the present economic hard times. Fewer and fewer are producing, and the survivors aren’t the most talented but rather those who come from wealthy families and have trust funds. This isn’t unusual. Historically, the fine arts have only ever thrived under patronage from the wealthy. One difference is, if you’re reading this, you’re probably about as rich as the average merchant prince in Renaissance Italy.
But you give at church, or to the United Way, or to your alumni fund, and to hell with the artists.
Now, just for a moment, I’m going to talk about why I write these things.
I don’t do it because it’s fun, or to fill up the idle hour. Initially, I wrote for practice, to teach myself how to write by doing. One thing about politics and public policy is, it’s easy to find a topic to be passionate about, and it’s fairly simple for anyone willing to spend a few hours a day on research to understand the topic far better than the average Joe (or Rick – I see you there, Rick). Now that I’m submitting my work for sale, I don’t have quite as much time as I did to pass along what I’ve learned, but I do still like to keep my hand in.
That, by the way, is the value that I pass on to the community: If you read what I write, you gain the benefit of my hours of research. Note that I don’t rely on some mindless pundit’s YouTube rants or the talking heads on Fox News or MSNBC; I chase down the actual source as often as I can. When Dr. Naismith got misquoted on masks, I took the trouble to talk to Dr. Naismith and ask him what he intended to pass on: that, as the policy was being implemented, they would do more harm than good, and had far better be supplanted by national requirements for HVAC filters in every public space. When SCOTUS hands down a ruling and someone expresses shock and outrage, I’ve actually read the ruling and the appropriate laws and have at least a faint idea why it’s not really shocking.
I take the time to read these things because you can’t. You’re busy working real jobs and earning a living. Which is good; someone has to.
It’s up to you to decide if what I do is of any benefit to you. If you appreciate it, enjoy it, or… heck, if you don’t bother to read but are nevertheless happy that The Not Fake News is here, click the link and buy me a coffee.
Or don’t.
If you don’t, remember: Other people are paying for my writing time now, and I rather like their money. It folds nicely, has pretty pictures on it, and – this bit’s important – can buy me more ramen noodles to replace the ones I just ate for lunch. Thus, I’m far more inclined to write for their benefit than for that of people who take what I do for granted. I’ll probably keep on doing what I do for a while, but articles will inevitably become fewer and farther between.
And, more and more, you’ll need to rely on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC to inform you, plus whatever meme shows up in your news feed. It’s pretty pitiful, so I’ll stick around for a while regardless.
Bottom line: You don’t need to give me money, especially if you don’t read what I write. If you do and find it useful, drop a dime in the can. But I’ll survive, even though this site may not.
But there are people out there you should support, oh Merchant Prince, and they aren’t part of the United Way, and your church won’t help them, and they don’t get tax money. Keep your eyes open for that little donation box. Do what you can, or we’ll lose them back to fast food.
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