Every day that I report to work at Daily Kos is different, and currently each one brings me a little closer to my fifth anniversary in December. I’ve held a few different titles in my time here—social media strategist, staff writer, trending news editor—but I’ve spent the longest time in my current role, and it’s also been the most fulfilling. As managing editor of Community Content, I’m devoted to what I consider to be the most unique aspect of Daily Kos: Our open platform for you, the Community, to write about the issues that matter the most to you.
I’ve always been kind of obsessed with the Community, if I’m honest. I hadn’t even been here a year before I launched my weekly Picks of the Week series and newsletter, which required me to read every single piece y’all wrote. I also included writing tips alongside my roundup, hoping to help writers put their best foot forward. My interest in Community writing, as well as my desire to help writers, did not go unnoticed by the Powers That Be, and that led to the offer to create the Community Contributors program, focused on compensating and developing current members of the Community who were already contributing so much.
Along the way, we’ve published hundreds of original stories, launched new series (Black Music Sunday, anyone?), and even held a writing workshop.
But there was always more to come. In January, I told y’all we were launching a huge initiative to recruit and develop writers who weren’t already a part of the Daily Kos Community, but definitely belonged here. It’s been in the works for awhile—long enough that COVID-19 derailed it, in fact. But I’m so thrilled to tell you that we’ve finally made it happen, and we’ve got five new members of the Community ready to throw their voices into our uniquely progressive fray.
I can’t wait for you to meet them.
First, here’s a quick reminder of our vision for the Daily Kos Emerging Fellows, as I noted in January.
Also new in 2022? We’re piloting the Daily Kos Emerging Fellows Program, which is designed to introduce and integrate new voices to the Daily Kos Community, and help amplify and develop passionate progressive writers who are new(er) to writing.
I can’t wait to introduce the Emerging Fellows to you next month, and hope you’ll welcome them with open arms, patience, and interest—just as you all welcomed me back in 2017.
We read so many applications and writing samples, spent weeks upon weeks doing interviews, and this month, we launched the fellowship! Since Feb. 1, five writers from around the country—each with different lived experiences and backgrounds, interests, and perspectives—have been attending workshops and crafting their first stories for Daily Kos, and I’m confident you’re going to want to follow them all as they add their voice to the important conversations we have here every single day.
The Fellows will be introducing themselves to you over the next two days, and I can only hope you’ll be as welcoming to them as you were to me when I wrote my first story in 2017. I’ll be updating this story as each intro goes live, but here are their profiles if you want to get ahead of the game and give them a follow now!
Matthew Braunginn (read Matthew’s intro here)
Robyn Parks (read Robyn’s intro here)
Sabrina Slipchenko (read Sabrina’s intro here)
Satchel Sankar (read Satchel’s intro here)
Sophia Burns (read Sophia’s intro here)
Also, this is a shameless plug, but I don’t care: Be sure to follow the DKEF feed so you never miss a single story from this remarkable group. It’s been so amazing to work with them, and I cannot wait to see what they accomplish in the next six months—and beyond.
