Disclaimer: This post was written by Paul Hogarth, a campaign director on the Daily Kos Activism Team and member of the Daily Kos Guild.
I came to work for Daily Kos in 2013, but my connection with the website goes back another ten years to the Howard Dean campaign. I hosted a house party in June 2003, and my co-host invited some dude named Markos to show up. I was already active in progressive politics—but pretty soon, I was blogging in my spare time at Daily Kos and attending Netroots Nation every year.
After a decade of writing, though, I got frustrated. You can spend hours researching the perfect article, but who will read it? Moreover, what will people do about it? That's why I joined the staff of Daily Kos ten years ago—not to write blog posts, but to join the activism team where we do online actions based on the news.
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Progressive journalism that doesn't "bothsides" each issue like the traditional media is valuable. And a progressive news site with a wide reach that engages readers to carry out action? That's golden, and no one else does what Daily Kos does. It is an honor to work here for that reason.
Daily Kos' motto has always been "news you can do something about," and I feel like our department is the perfect link: the Content team does the hard work informing people about what happened, and then the Activism team does the hard work of finding ways that people can do something about it.
We write online petitions (by ourselves or in concert with allied organizations) and then use our considerable reach to collect signatures. We use our email list to fundraise for many key Democratic races and progressive organizations. If a critical vote is coming up in Congress, we generate millions of constituent letters—and use our SMS list to generate phone calls.
And every two years at election time, we are the top place online to recruit volunteers for crucial Democratic campaigns. In 2022, as the pundits proclaimed that a "Red Wave" was coming, I ran our get-out-the-vote efforts quietly. After we recruited more than 50,000 volunteers for key races, I watched the election night returns, satisfied with what we had done.
Like all progressive companies, we have seen a decline in engagement and revenue in the Biden years—but there's nothing we can't do to continue to be just as politically influential. And I would argue, now is the time more than ever when we can push a positive agenda. Now is not the time to follow the boom-and-bust cycle, but to instead build long-term infrastructure.
Since Daily Kos management announced pending layoffs, I've been doing a lot of soul-searching about my personal future. Worst-case scenario: I get laid off. Best-case scenario: I don't get laid off, but some of my colleagues (including members of Activism) are let go.
That scares me. We are a very productive team because we support one another and shoulder the burden of what gets done. For example, I manage our SMS calendar—but my co-workers each take a day to send out the text message. This ensures that no single person gets bogged down in busy work, and we all can achieve our fullest potential.
I have been heartened by the reaction from the Daily Kos community after we told you about pending layoffs. A few of you have some great ideas to raise revenue, which I hope that management truly takes to heart. Because right now, a lot of people's jobs are at stake.
Working at Daily Kos has never just been about a job for me. It's a calling, as I have dedicated my entire adult life to fighting for a more progressive America. And as I will turn 45 this year, I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.
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Daily Kos Guild (DKG) represents 54 Daily Kos Staff members and another 6 "disputed" positions, accounting for 67% of Daily Kos' total workforce. DKG is a Pacific Media Workers Guild member, a local of the NewsGuild/Communication Workers of America, and was certified as the bargaining unit of represented Staff in 2022.
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