Hey everybody — it’s Rachel and Steve here. As old as it makes us feel to admit it, as of this year, MaddowBlog has been going for 16 years. It’s old enough to drive! And we love it today as much as we ever did — and are looking forward to it growing old enough to vote, drink, rent a car, run for office, and get its AARP card someday. Steve promises to keep bringing you the news until the letters wear off his keyboard. And then we’ll get him a new one! That is how we imagine the future of this long conversation we have been having together about the news all these years – MaddowBlog and youse guys, our favorite people in the world.
That said, the MaddowBlog universe is about to have some changes. Good ones! Over time, there have been a few features of the blog that we liked a lot, but that were cast aside for one reason or another — we’re going to bring some of those things back now. For example, you used to be able to comment on the blog — we’re going to bring that back. We used to post more stuff about me (Rachel) behind the scenes, which we’ll start doing again, too. Letters and contributions from you guys alerted us to a ton of great stories we wouldn’t have otherwise known about and even helped us tell them — we’re going to add in more ways to do that again.
The big change that’s happening for us, company-wide, is that MS NOW is launching a new Membership program, and our new app and website for MS NOW Members has a whole bunch of new stuff. There will be new ways for you to connect directly with me every week. You can watch The Rachel Maddow Show and other MS shows both live and recorded. You can comment on MaddowBlog posts or on stories and discussions throughout MS NOW. There is a lot to this. It’s going to be good!
But! And! There are bigger changes afoot, too. If you are used to reading MaddowBlog on the MS NOW app, you can still read all you want for free. If you read MaddowBlog on a browser, there will be a limit to how many articles you can read without becoming a Member.
We hope that many of you will join us and become MS NOW Members. Through the end of September you can join for just $40 for an entire year (and yes that includes being able to watch TRMS and all the other MS NOW shows live or recorded!). We will do our best to make this worth it for you, with more to offer than we had before.
We also want to be clear and honest with you about the reason we’re doing the membership program — it’s because we intend to be here for the long haul. The new MS NOW — with the app and the membership program and everything else — will help us stay resilient and stay independent, so we can keep reporting the news and telling the truth without fear or favor, and without giving anyone a way to push us around. It gives us the financial and editorial freedom and foundation we need so we can be here for you and with you, for good. We hope you’ll join us!
With gratitude and respect…
Rachel and Steve
You can become a Member here: ms.now/Membership and we have an FAQ page too: help.ms.now
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