Dear rabblers,

Elections matter — and the one upcoming matters like perhaps none other in recent history. Recognizing that independent election coverage is essential at election-time, rabble.ca has launched a special federal election section — which we hope you’ve all been following. The section features coverage from seasoned journalists, activist organizations, civil society and citizen reporters. We are proud of this coverage but we need support to keep it up.

Here is some of what you’ll find in our election coverage:

– we’ve launched a weekly print edition for the election period — the rabble rouser — a resource readers can download, print and share, and that we hope you will consider distributing to your members: https://rabble.ca/rabblerouser

– we’re about to launch a voters’ guide — which includes both the basics about how to vote, and links to many of the important resources that can help the undecided decide how to vote — such as Catch 22, LeadNow, ProjectDemocracy and many more

– we publish original feature stories on the election daily, such as Kathleen O’Hara’s important “10 reasons to oppose the Harper candidate in your riding,” and have plans for upcoming profiles of important ridings for progressives to watch

– we host a multi-author blog section, counting now more than 20 contributors writing on the election, including Murray Dobbin, Dionne Brand, Pierre Beaudet and many others

– we publish news daily from our labour and NGO partners, and share links to photos, videos and websites that you’ll want to visit during the election

-we will be announcing the launch of a new section on April 18 that you won’t want to miss [hint: that’s the day Sun Media TV launches]… and much, much more!

We are calling on rabble visitors to help us raise an additional $5,000 to help with cost of covering the elections: an increased writers’ budget, the increased tech demands and the increased editorial work that goes into covering a major election. Specifically, your contribution will enable us to pay some of the many contributors we need to bring you this alternative coverage, and to help cover the seven-day work week our editors, tech team and babble moderators put in to keep the news flowing. If you haven’t already signed up to our daily email alerts — there is no time like now to do so, as it captures the breadth of the daily coverage.

Your donation of $10, $50, $100, $1,000 — whatever you can give — will ensure we get the stories out that need to be told. If you work or volunteer with an organization that can donate $250 or more towards our budget, we’ll list them on the page as an “Elections 2011 coverage sponsor.”

I hope you will consider supporting this work today. Please donate at: http://www.rabble.ca/donate

Sincerely, Kim

P.S.: Curious to know how we spend generally spend the money rabble raises? Check out our annual reports at: http://www.rabble.ca/about/annualreport. You can trust that anything you donate to rabble will be well spent.

kim

Kim Elliott

Publisher Kim spent her first 16 years on a working family farm in Quebec. Her first memories of rabble rousing are of strike lines, promptly followed by Litton’s closure of the small town...