From Editor Robert Parry: Honest journalism is vital to a genuine democracy. But what we’ve seen from the U.S. mainstream media – of which I was a part for many years – is something dangerously far from honest. It has become a propaganda megaphone for a corrupt and self-interested establishment.

By contrast, what we’ve tried to do at Consortiumnews.com over the past 22 years is maintain principled journalistic standards, which include considering all responsible sides of a story and recognizing that the U.S. government and its many flacks are not the fount of all truth. Of course, that doesn’t mean that other viewpoints are necessarily correct either. But an open mind is a vital feature of honest journalism.

We also don’t take corporate advertising, nor do we have any big-dollar benefactor who can dictate our content. We can maintain our independence because we rely on contributions from readers and because we operate on a very tight budget.

But that does mean that our three annual fundraisers (spring, early fall, and end-of-year) must reach their fairly modest targets. Right now, we are struggling to match our early fall goal of $35,000.

If you wish to help, you can donate by credit card online (we accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover), by PayPal (our PayPal account is named after our original email address, “consortnew @ aol.com”), or by mailing a check to Consortium for Independent Journalism (CIJ); 2200 Wilson Blvd., Suite 102-231; Arlington VA 22201.

We also are registered with PayPal’s Giving Fund under the name Consortium for Independent Journalism. And, since we are a 501-c-3 non-profit, donations by American taxpayers may be tax-deductible.

Thank you for your support.

Robert Parry

Robert Parry is a longtime investigative reporter who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for the Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. He founded Consortiumnews.com in 1995 to create an outlet for well-reported journalism that was being squeezed out of an increasingly trivialized U.S. news media.