A Letter from the Editor…
Dear Maryland Matters Reader,
On the morning of June 28, Maryland Matters began its summer fund drive. I sent an email, and we posted a fundraising note on our site.
In the afternoon of June 28, a gunman shot and killed five employees of the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis and injured two others.
Like all Marylanders, our hearts were broken. We suspended our summer fund drive.
We are again in a time of crisis.
A time of hate crimes. Of violence against people because of the color of their skin or their religion.
A time of virulent attacks on the press and the free flow of competing ideas.
Was this the time, I wondered, to ask for money on behalf of Maryland Matters?
When Maryland Matters began publishing, I was determined to make good on the promise of a free press. Determined to provide quality independent journalism — original reporting to help you stay informed about important public policy issues in our state.
We are living in tumultuous times. We must redouble our efforts on behalf of the causes we hold dear.
I invite you to support our work.
Maryland Matters is a non-profit. We don’t accept ads or have a paywall.
We rely on contributions from foundations and readers like you.
I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished.
We just began a very exciting content-sharing agreement with WTOP, the top-rated radio station in the Washington, D.C., region. WTOP is posting our campaign coverage on its website.
That’s a real tribute to the progress we’ve made and the reputation we’ve built in just 18 months of publishing!
If you value what you read in Maryland Matters every morning, please make a tax-deductible contribution today. You can do so by clicking here.
And keep in mind, in November and December, your contribution will be doubled! NewsMatch, a fund designed specifically to support non-profit news sites, with donors such as the Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund and Facebook, will match contributions of up to $1,000 during this time.
With deepest gratitude,
Josh Kurtz
Editor and Co-founder
P.S. With Election Day now behind us, please take a look at all our great coverage today and ask yourself whether Maryland Matters has helped you navigate the complex issues and machinations of the races. If your answer is ‘yes’, please make a tax-deductible contribution — which NewsMatch will double! — to support our non-profit news site. Thank you!
Josh Kurtz
Founding editor
Founding Editor Josh Kurtz is a veteran chronicler of Maryland politics and government. He began covering the State House in 1995 for The Gazette newspapers, and has been writing about state and local politics ever since. He was an editor at Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, for eight years, and for eight years was the editor of E&E Daily, which covers energy and environmental policy on Capitol Hill. For 6 1/2 years Kurtz wrote a weekly column on state politics for Center Maryland and has written for several other Maryland publications as well. Kurtz regularly gives speeches and appears on TV and radio shows to discuss Maryland politics.
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