Friday September 17, 2010
LifeSiteNews is in the Red
Dear Friends of Life and Family,
With our fall campaign now at the half-way mark and only $23,000 of the needed minimum of $100,000 donated, you can understand that we are getting a wee bit anxious. Both our Canadian and US bank accounts are very low and we recently had to take a temporary loan from a supportive organization. We are in the red.
I presume that those who have not yet donated or could donate more have questions about our quarterly fundraising campaigns.
If you have already contributed as much as you are able, please ignore this and all other appeal letters. We are very grateful for your support without which we could not exist.
For the others, let me explain.
Why should you donate funds to our life and family issues Internet news service when almost everything on the Internet is free? Why does LifeSiteNews have an annual budget of over $500,000? What is so different about LSN?
First, let me very briefly introduce you again to our staff. You saw them before in our August 20 article ‘We’re back‘. Here is a different photo of this special group.
LSN’s major expense is the minimal wages paid to our 12 staff (eight of whom are full time) plus two contracted Internet technical specialists. On top of that are considerable service, equipment, communications, administrative, legal and other expenses.
Our younger staff are all top graduates of very special colleges. Six of them are Christendom College graduates. They understand the significance of LSN issues due to their exceptional college formation.
Five staff are married with children and are sole providers. All staff have to be paid a somewhat living wage to be able to do this work of love for life and family..
Why do we need people of such a caliber and what do they do all day?
LifeSiteNews is not just a copy and paste or Internet link posting website.
We don’t just scan the Internet, copy information from other sources and throw it all together to make it seem that we are the authors of information that others have gathered. We take pride in the original work that goes into every one of our news pieces.
We do publish some outside reports of special significance, but that is plainly stated at the top or bottom of those reports.
By far the majority of our time is spent on researching, validating and then writing what are usually unique and often genuine investigative reports that no one else publishes as we do.
From us you get an emphasis on what we understand is the real significance of every story. It takes special effort and knowledge and a rare total disregard for what critics may think to do that. We get to the core truth and pass that on to you. The truth is everything for us – because only the truth can save life, family and freedom.
John-Henry Westen’s September 15 report, “Planned Parenthood Rabbi Given Pulpit at Austin Catholic Church“, illustrates the effectiveness of LSN’s approach and all that is involved in that approach.
The story itself was not a major news development. However, it was an opportune example of frequent misguided actions by religious leaders who gravely underestimate the influence of Planned Parenthood – the most powerful and dangerous anti-life, anti-family organization in the world. This story had to be told for a wider purpose. There is always a reason why we publish what we do.
John-Henry spent many hours over three days researching that Austin, Texas report while at the same time juggling his many other LSN responsibilities. We could not publish the report until all the facts were confirmed and sufficient attempts were made to contact the parish pastor and his bishop to allow each to give their comments about the situation. That was no easy task.
More than a few different parish attendees were also repeatedly and carefully interviewed about the information that they had on the situation.
Ten different people were contacted for the story, some of them two to four times. At least 18 telephone calls were made and 15 emails were exchanged. Six telephone calls to three of the diocesan offices were made to try to obtain the bishop’s response. There was a personal meeting in the US with one of the informants.
When the office of Austin Bishop Joe Vásquez finally emailed their statement, the story could be completed and published. All the bases were covered and a very credible story resulted. The story included contact information for the bishop at the bottom, as we often include in LSN reports – another one of our unique features.
Lastly, as we always do, the story passed through at least two other editors for additional review before final approval for posting. A number of little and sometimes major, necessary edits are often made at that stage.
Thursday’s email from the diocese stated that “Father Covington has determined, in consultation with Bishop Vásquez, to withdraw the invitation” to Temple Beth Shalom to conduct its Yom Kippur services in St. Louis Catholic parish this coming weekend.
The diocese indicated that the issues emphasized in the LSN story were the reasons for this action. The statement said, “Rabbi Alan Freedman is a member of the board of Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capital Region, and questions about the suitability of the use of a Catholic sanctuary by a non-Christian community”
Hard work, determined research, responsible reporting and careful editing paid off, as it very often does with LSN reports. It takes paid, competent, very principled and courageous staff to achieve these kinds of results on the difficult issues we cover. There is no other way.
There are many more success stories we could write about – many of them regarding more prominent, national and international situations.
Our greatest frustration is that we have no doubt at all that we could achieve much, much more – if only we had sufficient financial support.
Please support LifeSiteNews with a donation. At the very least we need enough to just keep doing our current level of reporting.
As always, we leave it entirely up to you, our readers, to respond to the needs that we tell you about.
If you appreciate what we do – please send a generous gift or whatever you can afford – $5, $20, $50, $100, $500, $1,000, $5,000, $10,000 or even more or less.
We need quite a boost of donations to our current campaign just to get through the next couple of months.
Every little or large amount will be put to very good use.
Steve Jalsevac
Co-founder and Managing Director
LifeSiteNews.com
P.S. Donate securely online, by mail or phone (866) 787-9947 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST. Ask for LifeSiteNews.com donations.
US and International Readers can mail donations to:
LifeSiteNews.com, Inc.
4 Family Life Lane
Front Royal, VA 22630
USA
Canadian Readers can mail donations to:
LifeSiteNews.com
104 Bond St, Third Floor
Toronto ON M5B 1X9
Canada