Jack, I'll let you in on a little secret: Unless you are Fox News, it's really, really hard to stay afloat as a news outlet. Most news media companies are just scraping by to make ends meet.

Please support independent, progressive news by donating $5 to Daily Kos.

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Decades ago, many news media companies relied solely on advertising revenue to cover their expenses. Unfortunately, so much has changed from how people consume their news to how the advertising industry operates, that this is no longer sustainable. News media companies either evolved or died.

Some companies have erected paywalls, some like the Washington Post and Time Magazine were bought by billionaires, others like the Huffington Post have been bought and sold to the highest bidder and then downsized to maximize potential profit; then there is Buzzfeed that attempted to make a profit by becoming a publicly traded company.

Not too long ago, just like all those other news media companies, Daily Kos was also facing some financial challenges. Like other news media companies, Daily Kos had to evolve in order to stay afloat.

We could no longer rely only on advertising to cover our expenses. Instead of finding a billionaire backer or some corporate sponsor, Daily Kos started relying on three sources of revenue: community fundraising, advertising, and list building, in which Democratic and progressive campaigns pay for the opportunity to make their case to our readers.

Unfortunately, this year has gotten off to a rough start and we are once again facing some financial challenges. Both advertising and list building are lagging behind our projections and we now have to rely more and more on support from our readers and activists to cover our budget expenses.

In hopes of offsetting the deficit of our other revenue sources, we chose to raise our fundraising goal for March. We now need to raise $106,791 by the end of the month. Can you support Daily Kos by donating $5 today?

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Thanks for all you do,
Amanda McKay, 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.