In this morning’s AJC, fellow Decatur resident and recent not-just-a-food-writer, John Kessler, sits down with Paste’s editor Josh Jackson for an in-depth look at the “Save Paste” campaign.

In the article, Kessler discusses Paste’s long-standing mission, the not quite success of the Pay-What-You-Want campaign, their ties to Decatur, and throws out a few key numbers:

• 1 million uniques a month for PasteMagazine.com:

• 205,000 people subscribe to the print version of Paste

• The company has raised $240,000 of $300,000 needed to stay afloat

Kessler even gets some response from the Atlanta music community on Paste’s move to ask for money: Stomp and Stammer’s publisher is opposed (saying the effort “comprises you what you do”), while the owner of Criminal Records supports it.

Here in Decatur, we’ve been around this block before.  First it was Wordsmiths Books that asked for donations to stay afloat (though ultimately folded) and now Paste.  And though editor Nick Purdy informed me that Wordsmiths’ decision didn’t influence Paste’s fundraising idea, it seems more than mere coincidence that this idea is only being pursued here.

Why?  It might just be that community effectively blurs the idea of “charity” and removes it from it’s black-and-white context in the stark global economy.  As Wendell Berry wrote in 2001,

In a viable neighborhood, neighbors ask themselves what they can do or provide for one another, and they find answers that they and their place can afford. This, and nothing else, is the practice of neighborhood. This practice must be, in part, charitable, but it must also be economic, and the economic part must be equitable; there is a significant charity in just prices.

Good luck fellas.  In addition to much the music world, Decatur is behind you.

Fresh Loaf has a press release from Paste Magazine announcing that it has reached the halfway point in a campaign to raise $300,000 to keep the music magazine afloat.

So far we have raised $148,000! That was the minimum that we needed to keep us going into the summer; we never expected to hit this goal so quickly. Thank you! We have the most amazing readers in the world, and we now know—in a very real way—that we hold this thing called Paste in trust for you and will work diligently to honor that.

We still have a ways to go. Most of our debt will be paid out of revenues when the economy starts to rebound and advertisers return, but we need $300,000 to take care of bills that spiraled up during the ad slump. We’re halfway to that goal and more confident than ever that Paste will make it.

As a way of saying thanks for donating, Paste is giving charitible readers access to over 120 tracks in the Paste Station Download Vault…and the list of artists seems to just keep growing!  Click here to donate.

As reported in this morning’s AJC, the Save Paste website is now up.

All donors will get access to 70 mp3 downloads and those that give more than $350 will get a complementary lifetime membership to the mag.

And a slight aside:  The AJC article not only mentions Drive a Faster Car where the story broke, AND provides a link, but also quotes anonymous commenters from the site.

Was someone listening?

Drive a Faster Car reports that Paste Magazine is in serious financial trouble and is “trying to scrounge up enough money to put out the next issue.”

According to DaFC, Paste will launch a “Save Paste” campaign later today offering exclusive music in exchange for donations.

Very sad news.  If Paste folds, we’ll lose a venerable “New Decatur” institution.

Thanks to Lump for tipping me off to this.