Jack, there is another reason why, if Daily Kos were to disappear tomorrow--as happened to scores of publications over the last few years, including progressive outlets like Think Progress--nothing would ever take our place.
One reason for this, as I detailed in the email below, is that there are no other publications like Daily Kos: progressive, participatory, grassroots-funded, news you can do something about. However, another reason is that, with the seemingly never-ending rise of Big Tech and social media platforms, it's just very difficult to start new publications of any sort right now.
Journalism and publishing are shrinking. Eyeballs and advertising dollars that once went to support journalists and publishers are now flowing to Facebook, Google, and Amazon, which collectively account for almost 70% of all digital ad spending. More than any other factor--including the COVID-19 pandemic--the increasing dominance of social media and Big Tech giants are why thousands upon thousands of jobs were lost at media companies not only in 2020, but every year for more than a decade now.
A new publication with all of the traits that make Daily Kos unique would never appear now, in the age of social media and Big Tech.
If you value grassroots-driven, participatory, progressive news you can do something about, then please start a $5 monthly donation to Daily Kos. No matter how many ad dollars Big Tech vacuums up, publications do not have to disappear if they are supported by their readers. Help us continue our unique, invaluable work.
Can't contribute monthly? A one time donation also helps us continue to provide you grassroots-driven, participatory, progressive news you can do something about.
Thank you for all you do,
Chris Bowers
Executive Campaign Director, Daily Kos
Jack, if Daily Kos were to disappear tomorrow--which happened to scores of media outlets in 2020, to Think Progress in 2019, and to much of the original progressive blogosphere years earlier--nothing would ever take our place.
This is because Daily Kos is something that you cannot find anywhere else: grassroots-driven, participatory, progressive, news you can do something about. Consider just how different Daily Kos is:
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Progressive news you can do something about: We don't just aggregate the news or report, analyze and comment on it from a left-of-center slant. Instead, we actively take sides on the biggest issues of the day, and give our community a way to take impactful action on the news stories they are reading. This is why, in 2021 alone, we have generated over 2,000,000 actions demanding accountability for the insurrection on January 6, over 1,000,000 actions each to protect voting rights and to pass the biggest possible Build Back Better package possible, over 500,000 actions each to confirm President Biden's nominees and to abolish the filibuster, plus $2,000,000 raised for Demcoratic candidates and progressive organizations. No other media organization does anything like this.
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Grassroots-driven: Our primary source of funding is not from large donors or from advertisers. Instead, it is from tens of thousands of small donors giving a few dollars at a time. This makes us accountable to our grassroots army of small donors, not to corporate advertisers or the whims of a few uber wealthy individuals. Once again, try to think of any other media organizations that operates like this.
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Participatory: We don't just have a comments section or a social media feed that interacts with other people once in a while. Instead, we have an unmatched community where people can write their own articles and determine which articles appear prominently on the website--in fact, many of our most widely read articles come from our community. Numerous Daily Kos staff--including me, the director of the email list and head of the activism department--have come from the Daily Kos community, while others, such as Nate Silver, have launched entire careers from there. One of the largest progressive conferences in the country, Netroots Nation, arose in 2006 as a volunteer-driven effort from the Daily Kos community. The impact of the Daily Kos community on the organization as a whole is unmatched by any other media outlet.
Now, even though we have a very different operating model, there is one way Daily Kos is no different from most other media outlets. Like everyone else, we face real pressure from the rise of social media networks and Big Tech. As Facebook, Google and Amazon eat up over two-thirds of all digital advertising dollars, we have become ever more reliant on sources of income other than advertising.
For Daily Kos, this means we are more reliant on small donors than ever before, and this is just as true in July 2021 as it was during the height of the pandemic last year. We need your support to continue to provide grassroots-driven, participatory, progressive news you can do something about. Please start a $5 monthly donation to Daily Kos today to help us continue our unique, invaluable work.
Can't contribute monthly? A one time donation also helps us continue to provide you grassroots-driven, participatory, progressive news you can do something about.
Thank you for all that you do,
Chris Bowers
Executive Campaign Director, Daily Kos
If you wish to donate by mail instead, please send a check to Daily Kos, PO Box 70036, Oakland, CA, 94612. Contributions to Daily Kos are not tax deductible. (Please note that we may be slow to process checks during the coronavirus outbreak.)
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