MoJo’s Working   

While many news organizations are sending out press releases announcing imminent layoffs and declining ad revenues, Mother Jones is beaming with news of growth.

Circulation is up--165,663 for the last half of 2000, 15,000 higher than in 1999. Advertising revenue is up--by more than 50 percent from 1997 to 2000. Ad pages have grown, too, by 18 percent for the first half of this year over the first half of 2000.

It all makes for a pretty happy 25th anniversary for the investigative bimonthly magazine, the recent winner of a National Magazine Award for general excellence.

Publisher Jay Harris credits Editor in Chief Roger Cohn, who came on board in April 1999; great reporting and writing; and Design Director Jane Palecek for the improvements. Plus--"Among thought leaders, among the type of people who read Mother Jones...there really is a backlash against celebrity journalism and pack news."

Well, and having George W. as president can't do anything but help a progressive-leaning mag. "By consistently delivering journalism that has social and political justice at its core, I think it speaks to people who are feeling a little embattled" in the Bush era, says Harris (who is not the former San Jose Mercury News publisher).

The perpetually poor Mother Jones--it operates slightly above or below the break-even point each year--is published by the nonprofit Foundation for National Progress and makes ends meet through individual contributions and grants from a small number of foundations. Harris says he worries about a sluggish economy as any publisher would. But the magazine has a history of "putting relative scarce funds" behind its stories, he says. "Our reporting is the engine that drives everything else."