Daily Kos is a political website. It’s a smallish operation compared to some news organizations so I don’t expect it to have comprehensive news on every last subject. But I do expect it to be good at covering politics as it is supposed to be about getting Democrats elected. So when a major progressive politician like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez headlines the largest climate march in the US in the last five years I expect… something? Anything?
We love highlighting the importance of Ukraine’s defense on Daily Kos because they are in an existential fight for their existence, and they are in a fight for the health of our democracy. So it surprises me when we find it so difficult to pay the slightest attention to our climate crisis. We’re talking about an existential threat to our planet-wide civilization. It’s a heck of a lot more important than another article about Mr. Trump.
Over at the Guardian they seem capable of covering it as it is a headline article over there. Imagine that, a British news organization which covers news in general putting a climate march of political importance in a different country in top billing. Meanwhile the Daily Kos, a US based politically focused blog, gives it next to nothing. Absolutely nothing from the paid staff. Community member Boatsie posted an article about it and as of 9:47 the same night it is not on the front page trending list. Some 9 hours later it has 28 recommends. This is not a critique of Boatsie, their article is solid. But I’ve seen three sentence articles with a link to a tweet about Trump hitting the Rec list for a day.
Daily Kos will cover Trump’s latest fart on social media ad infinitum. We will have a million submissions on the latest Republican everyone wants to make fun of. But we can’t summon the ability to have a political analysis of a climate speech by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex? Why the hell do I come to this site? I thought we had serious people here who knew about politics to help put the march and speech in context. Isn’t that what Kos likes to brag about? That what Daily Kos provides is not the news, but the much neglected perspective and analysis that is so missing elsewhere. Or is this a statement by Daily Kos that climate change is unimportant? Is it a statement that the march is pointless and won’t move the needle? I certainly didn’t see the march mentioned on CNN.com when I checked it Sunday night, at least not prominently. So is this Daily Kos siding with corporate media to help us collectively bury our heads in the sand regarding climate change?
In the past few months I have seen some great climate articles by Mark Sumner. And Meteor Blades and Pakalolo have been doing their regular great contributions. But when Daily Kos as an organization can’t even summon the most elementary step of putting up an Associated Press article about this march I begin to really doubt the credibility of this organization. I understand you have a business to run and that climate change articles typically don’t get the response levels of reporting on the latest turd Trump and his acolytes have decided smear over their bodies. But you don’t just give up. Meteor Blades and Pakalolo regularly have high recommend counts. They both write in ways that DOES grab readership.
I’m not good at writing politics. I can certainly write about my own opinions of course, but I don’t have a political background that allows me to put things into perspective and generate deeper understanding. That’s why I come to a site like Daily Kos. But apparently I should be going to the Guardian for serious news because all Daily Kos has to offer is cheap political laughs.
