Mother Jones unveils 50th anniversary issue

Mother Jones is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a special issue that includes a showcase of 46 of its most notable and provocative covers printed since its first issue in 1976; a 10-page spread of arresting photography over the decades; an essay from former Editor-in-Chief Deirdre English; and an essay from the organization’s CEO, Monika Bauerlein, examining the challenges and evolution of the nonprofit investigative magazine.

“This magazine, against all odds, somehow managed to survive its first year, and then its second, and then 48 more, and now you hold it in your hand in another moment of upheaval, when ferociously independent journalism is needed like never before,” Bauerlein writes in her essay. “While our newsroom of 75 people is less than 5 percent the size of, say, the behemoth New York Times, it punches way above its weight. There are days, astonishingly, when more people watch Mother Jones videos than watch either Sean Hannity or the CBS Evening News.”

“What started as an idealistic magazine to bring more investigative reporting to the country has evolved into an innovative and nimble news organization,” said Clara Jeffery, Mother Jones’ editor-in-chief. “Journalism that holds the powerful to account is more needed than ever, and as corporate media is captured or cowed, our fearless, independent newsroom is meeting the moment.”

As part of its 50th anniversary, Mother Jones is planning in-person events in San Francisco, including a photo exhibit hosted by the San Francisco Public Library in November 2026.

Mother Jones’ name is drawn from the early 1900s-era labor organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, and the magazine started in the post-Watergate years amid the backlash to the social movements of the 1960s. Believing that corporate media was not incentivized to offend its biggest advertisers with exposés about their practices, the founders launched Mother Jones with a crowd-funded, nonprofit business model that relied on readers to keep it going. 

Mother Jones was the nation’s first nonprofit news outlet focused on investigative reporting, and over the years, this model has inspired hundreds of other nonprofit news organizations across the country, including fellow Bay Area news organization the Center for Investigative Reporting. The two organizations merged in 2024, creating a multiplatform newsroom that reaches an audience of 20 million per month across print, digital, social, video, and the “Reveal” radio show and podcast and “More To The Story” podcast. 

Mother Jones was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2025, with the Center for Public Integrity, for a three-year investigation about the government taking land away from formerly enslaved people and has won a slew of other awards, including Emmys, Peabodys, Polks and the General Excellence Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors.  

While Mother Jones began as a print magazine, the organization in 1993 became one of the first newsrooms in the country to launch a website. Remarkably, Mother Jones has more print subscribers today than at any time in its history.