Daily Kos was built on the notion that regular people were just as important in our political discourse as the so-called experts, that pundits didn't have a monopoly on wisdom, that power could be wielded beyond places like DC and NYC.
Daily Kos has now grown such that it is bigger than most of the places we once critiqued, and likely more influential than many of the people and organizations we once targeted. (I mean, 8.5 million uniques, in August!) So, there's a very real possibility that we could become that which we once despised, insular, smug and self-satisfied with what we've become and accomplished.
That's why it's always been important for me to keep finding voices in the community to elevate, and every year we bring in a new class of contributing editors (formerly known as "featured writers"). We look for people who build respect among their peers in this community, are smart, and bring new perspectives to the day's issues in their writing. This is a high-pressure gig. When I began, I don't even think my wife read Daily Kos. I was able to ease into the gig without a massive audience second-guessing my every move. We now need our new front-page writers to become instantly acclimated to the glaring spotlight. Did I mention 8.5 million uniques?
We need to these new contributing editors to be even-tempered. Some people will say everything they write is shit, and that can't get to them. Others will praise them to the heavens, and no one likes inflated egos. We're in this to build a better America, not to self-promote. We're all human, and we'll all make mistakes, so we have to have the fortitude and humility to weather the worst, and the quiet self-confidence to remain grounded during the best. Some existing contributing editors talk about their promotion, and how they went from being a regular community members to being THE MAN, overnight. It takes a certain kind of personality to manage this kind of change and pressure with grace.
Before I announce this year's class, I just want to make clear that our potential pool is massive. This community is blessed with a huge number of gifted writers, any of whom would be great additions to the site's editorial roster. It's why the next-NEXT version of Daily Kos (DK6, launching in the next year or two, after we launch our current refresh) will more prominently feature community content on the site's front page. And even now, we're already heavily promoting our community's content -- our content share email, which goes out to 800,000 people every day is almost entirely community-written. Our Facebook page features community content at greater rates than staff-written material. We are intensely focused on making it easier for your best material to be shared and spread and consumed in as many places as possible. And there's nothing altruistic about it -- we're here to move our country forward, not win brownie points. We feature that content BECAUSE it is sharing well, making an impact, changing people's opinions or educating them or motivating them.
The talent pool is huge, and we're doing everything we can to raise your profile. But like I originally said, I refuse to let Daily Kos HQ become ossified, and the best way to prevent that is to continuously bring in new voices. Thus I'm excited and happy and proud to announce this year's all-Calfornia-based class:
Susan Grigsby (Susan from 29)
Frank Vyan Walton (Vyan)
Steven Payne (Steveningen)
Pretty awesome, huh? Full bios below the fold.
Steven Payne (Steveningen)
Raised in a small Midwestern town where minds were as narrow as the country roads surrounding it, Steven came to the realization that he was gay at the same time his classmates were discovering their own sexuality. Closets ran deep in his neck of the woods. When he finally busted through his at the age of 17, he did so with a liberal vengeance. Steven attended Illinois Wesleyan University as a piano performance major until, in his third year, he came to the sober realization that the world be just fine without ever hearing his interpretation of Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto.
In 1987, Steven moved to San Francisco where he was snapped out of the frivolity of the gay party circuit by the epidemic sweeping through his new community. Steven, like so many others at the time, became an accidental activist. He marched in demonstrations, wrote letters to his representatives, ritually cursed the name of Ronald Reagan, and became a volunteer with the Shanti Project. It was through this lens that he discovered that a wider world of social and political injustice existed with frustratingly few avenues with which to address them. In 2004, during the darkness known as the Bush administration, in near despair for our country, he stumbled on a website called Daily Kos. He discovered brilliant ideas being shared, heated debates on how to effectively win elections taking place, and solid ways to address the right-wing narrative. In 2008, after lurking, then becoming an avid commenter, he finally dipped his toe into into writing. It is a direction he never thought he might take as an activist and one in which he hopes to make a small difference in our shared goals.
Steven lives in the Bay area with his husband, Brian, and two sassy, gassy French bulldogs.
Frank Vyan Walton (
Vyan)
Frank Vyan Walton was born in the year that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, just one year after his “We chose to go to the moon” speech that inspired America to aim higher and reach further than any other nation, the year that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. held his historic march on Washington for the rights of all and gave a speech that would be known very differently had not Mahalia Jackson shouted to the Reverend, ‘Tell Them about 'The Dream’ Martin!”, the year that a certain Time Lord first made his appearance on the BBC and inspired many more to dream even further than could have been otherwise imagined.
He grew up in the long concrete abyss of South Central Los Angeles, among the warring factions of the Hoover Crips, the Bloods and the LAPD, watching militarized SWAT units emerge in response to the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (daring to exercise their Second Amendment rights publicly while decrying both gang and police violence).
His professional career began with working in the IT division of Northrop Grumman Corporation on their "Black World" project to develop the airborne version of what Tom Clancy’s Hunt For Red October called the "ultimate first strike weapon," the B2 stealth bomber. After leaving Northrop to become a contracting IT consultant for the state of California in the mid-'90s, he began to write and debate on the early ARPANET and Usenet, while learning to play guitar, bass, and lead sing in various L.A., and then Sacramento rock bands. Returning home to L.A. after the George Bush and Enron-wrought financial crash, he first found, joined, and began writing about public affairs on DailyKos in 2005, inspired by the blog of an active-duty Iraq war veteran. He’s been making a lot of noise ever since, both on Daily Kos and through projects such as online site building tool, SuperEShops.com, and on his debut solo CD, "Re-Evolutionize,” released in 2008.
Susan Grigsby (
Susan from 29)
Born in 1949, part of the post-war baby boom, Susan was one of the hippies that marched on the Democratic National Convention when it was held in her home town of Chicago in 1968. Her first taste of activism was not to be her last.
Moving to San Francisco in 1973, she had to do the job thing, which was pretty boring, as it was in the property/casualty insurance industry, and was only marked by her being the first woman (in every position she held). A beneficiary of the feminist movement, she paid it forward by becoming a crisis intervention counselor for victims of sexual trauma at San Francisco’s Central Emergency Hospital.
Her job took her to Southern California, where she met and married her husband of 30 years, twelve of which were spent traveling the country, playing professional tourist. It was while volunteering at Joshua Tree National Monument (now Park) that they fell in love with the Mojave Desert and bought a home there in 1994.
Shortly afterwards, Susan rallied the citizens of her new hometown to save the local library, facing budget cuts that would have limited hours. A lifetime avid reader, the thought of library cutbacks was simply not acceptable—150% of the target was raised in four months.
Later, she and her husband repeatedly lobbied Congress for a DOD earmark to fund prostate cancer research under the guidance of the National Prostate Cancer Coalition, and she became a founding board member of the California Prostate Cancer Coalition.
When not indulging in her love of travel, Susan can be found reading and writing in her desert home, carefully supervised by her cats.