Daily Kos

Daily Kos (/koʊs/ KOHSS)[2] is a group blog and internet forum focused on center-left politics, the Democratic Party[3][4] and center-left liberal American politics.[5][6][7][8] The site features a participatory political encyclopedia ("DKosopedia"), glossaries, and other content. It is sometimes considered an example of "netroots" activism.

Daily Kos
Type of site
Political blog
Available inEnglish
OwnerKos Media, LLC
Created byMarkos Moulitsas
URLDailyKos.com
Alexa rank 5,771 (June 2020)[1]
CommercialYes
LaunchedMay 26, 2002 (2002-05-26)
Current statusActive
This article is part of a series on
Liberalism in
the United States
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It was founded in 2002 by Markos Moulitsas and takes the name Kos from the last syllable of his first name, his nickname whilst in the military.[9]

Organization overview

Funding

According to Daily Kos, its finances are sustained through lead generation, sponsored content, fundraising, and donations from readers and supporters who have signed up to receive joint petition emails from Daily Kos.[10]

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the Kos Media received between $1 million and $2 million in federally backed small business loans from Newtek Small Business Finance as part of the Paycheck Protection Program. The organization said it would help them retain 86 employees.[11][12]

Viewership and reception

As of September 2014, Daily Kos has had an average weekday traffic of hundreds of thousands.[13]

In 2008, Time magazine readers named Daily Kos the second best blog.[14] In 2009, Time listed Daily Kos in its "Most Overrated Blogs" section due to the loss of its mission, fighting the "oppressive and war-crazed" Republican administration, during Democrat Barack Obama's presidency.[15] The website ran on the Scoop content management system until 2011 when it moved to its own custom content management system referred to as "DK 4.0". In 2016 and 2017, the Trump presidency brought out huge support for the blog, with over half a million in direct donations being received from their email campaigns.[16]

Nonpartisan polling

Daily Kos had previously partnered with Research 2000 to produce nonpartisan polling for presidential, congressional and gubernatorial races across the country. In June 2010, Daily Kos terminated the relationship after finding that the data showed statistical anomalies consistent with deliberate falsification[17] and announced its intention to sue the polling firm.[18]

On November 30, 2010, an agreement to a settlement began as lawyers for the Plaintiff filed a status report indicating that both parties were “in agreement as to the contours of a proper settlement but are still in the process of determining whether the execution of the proposed terms is feasible."[19] In May 2011, The Huffington Post reported that Research 2000 pollster Del Ali agreed to settle the lawsuit and make payments to Daily Kos.[20]

Guest bloggers

Beginning in 2003, as his blog expanded to a community, Kos appointed four or five "guest bloggers" (also called "front page diarists," "contributing editors," "front-pagers," or simply "FPers") who were selected from the community and tasked with regular contributions on the front page (without needing to have their articles recommended or promoted).

  • 2003: Billmon; Steve Soto; Steve Gilliard; RonK, Seattle
  • 2004: Meteor Blades; DHinMI; Melanie; Trapper John; theoria; DemFromCT
  • 2005: DavidNYC; kid oakland; Hunter; Armando; a gilas girl; Plutonium Page[21]
  • 2006: georgia10; SusanG; mcjoan; DarkSyde; Superribbie (announced as a front-pager, but backed out the next day, citing time constraints)[22]
  • 2007: BarbinMD; Kagro X; Devilstower; MissLaura
  • 2008: brownsox; Scout Finch; smintheus; Jed L.
  • 2009: Steve Singiser
  • 2011: Scott Wooledge, Mark Fiore, Denise Oliver-Velez
  • 2012: Shanikka, Mother Mags, John Perr
  • 2013: V.L. Baker, Ian Reifowitz, Egberto Willies
  • 2014: Susan Grigsby, Frank Vyan Walton, Steven Payne, Shaun King, Kerry Eleveld
  • 2015: Josie Duffy, Thandisizwe Chimurenga, Vann R. Newkirk II[lower-alpha 1]

Additionally, while on the promotional tour for Crashing the Gate, Kos turned over much of the day-to-day management to the 2006 guest bloggers. Emeritus guest bloggers have frequently retained some privileges depending on circumstances, but are not expected to post as often.

A front-page diarist known as "Armando" (Armando Lloréns-Sar)[23][24] took a prominent role during Moulitsas' book hiatus in 2005 and was well known for his foreign policy and legal analysis. He also had his own political blogging website, called "Swords Crossed" that encouraged dialog between liberals and conservatives, and was a guest political commentator in a wide variety of media outlets, including The Majority Report and Talking Points Memo Cafe. After his identity and details of his legal career were made widely known, he announced his departure from Daily Kos in June 2006, citing loss of anonymity.[25] For two months, Armando would resurface periodically, his comments in this time were accompanied by a signature line stating that he would be returning to blogging in December 2006. Armando did indeed return, albeit under a user ID, "Big Tent Democrat," in September 2006. Armando "Big Tent Democrat" then left the Daily Kos site again in March 2007, citing "differences with the Management."[26] As of February 2011, Armando had resumed making contributions to Daily Kos.[27]

Another contributor, who posts pseudonymously as "DarkSyde", writes on the front page of Daily Kos and a blog called Unscrewing the Inscrutable. He is best known as a science writer with specific attention paid to biology, astronomy, and political issues such as creationism or climate change. In particular, DarkSyde's Hurricane Katrina diaries were widely read during the storm and in the immediate aftermath. They are included in a collection of science articles in the e-book Kosmos: You Are Here, co-written with science fiction novelist Mark Sumner and illustrated by paleowildlife artist Carl Buell. All the contributors to Kosmos donated the proceeds to fund the YearlyKos convention.

"Bill in Portland Maine" (Bill Harnsberger)[28] is a front page regular, best known for his recurring Cheers & Jeers feature,[29] in which he bestows plaudits and brickbats on various newsmakers. Cheers & Jeers, which first appeared on Daily Kos in 2003,[30] has evolved into a mini-community within the larger Daily Kos community, in which members post announcements about weddings, engagements, births, deaths, pet news, and other personal items, as well as sharing their own particular plaudits and brickbats. He lives with his partner Michael (known as "Common Sense Mainer"), a cat named Vegas, and his beloved chocolate lab, Molly. In the fall of 2007, Harnsberger lost his job, and the Daily Kos community collected $50,000 in pledges to allow him to continue to write Cheers & Jeers in a full-time paid position.

On June 2, 2007, Steve Gilliard, one of the blog's original contributors, died at the age of 42.[31]

In December 2015, Faith Gardner, the Social Media Director, started a rotating Featured Writer program, to promote articles by top diarists responsible for the most-trafficked stories on social media. The initial four were SemDem, Dartagnan, xxdr zombiexx, and Pakalolo.[32]

YearlyKos convention
Main article: Netroots Nation

In June 2006, members of Daily Kos organized the first ever Daily Kos political blogger convention, called YearlyKos, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event was attended by approximately 1000[33] bloggers, and featured appearances by prominent Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, California Senator Barbara Boxer, General Wesley Clark, Governors Mark Warner, Bill Richardson, Tom Vilsack and DNC Chair Howard Dean. The event was widely covered in the traditional media, including Capitol Hill Blue,[34] The Boston Globe[35] and MSNBC.[36] C-SPAN also carried portions of the convention.[37]

The event was generally[38] considered a success. YearlyKos 2007 took place in Chicago in August 2007, at which time it was announced that future conventions would be known as Netroots Nation.[39] In 2008, the conference was held in Austin, Texas, with a surprise visit from Al Gore. The 2009 conference was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from August 13 to 16. The 2017 conference was the first time the convention was held in the Deep South, in Atlanta, Georgia. Conferences are always held in venues that support a union.

Political activity

In addition to being a blogging, news, and digital media platform, Daily Kos is a political organization. For instance, The New York Times reported that James Thompson, the April 2017 Democratic candidate for the vacant Kansas Fourth Congressional District (House) seat in Kansas, "was helped by nearly $150,000 from Daily Kos, [...] and some more modest contributions from a group aligned with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont".[40] OpenSecrets.org reported that "the liberal Daily Kos endorsed Thompson and sent out a fundraising plea, which has so far garnered $178,000 in donations, according to its fundraising page."[41]

Daily Kos has endorsed notable Democratic candidates in state and national races, including Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election,[42] and candidate Jon Ossoff, who ran for Georgia's 6th Congressional District in a special election in June 2017. Ossoff received over $1 million raised on Daily Kos.[43]

gollark: Incomprehensible bee neuron data.
gollark: GTech™ bee neuron data offloaded to your computer.
gollark: You may want to cite my recent research:
gollark: Just cite random fancy sounding theorems.
gollark: Like parsing Perl. Instead of writing a parser, which is hard, you can simply prove that it cannot be done at all and get out of work.

See also

Notes
  1. The editors for 2015 were all Daily Kos staff and not contributing editors.

References
  1. "dailykos.com Competitive Analysis, Marketing Mix and Traffic - Alexa". alexa.com. Retrieved 2020-06-12.
  2. "Frequently asked questions". Daily Kos.
  3. "Interviews - Markos Moulitsas | News War | FRONTLINE | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 9 September 2018. Now, there are guidelines. Obviously you have the usual sexist, racist type of things, but it's also a Democratic site. So if Republicans want to come in and create trouble, they're not going to last very long.
  4. "How the Daily Kos candidate endorsement program works". Daily Kos. Retrieved 9 September 2018. Daily Kos has always been, and will always be, a Democratic site.
  5. Kos, About Daily Kos, Daily Kos about page.
  6. "Daily Kos's file", PolitiFact.
  7. Tommy Christopher, "Liberal DailyKos And Conservative Redstate Join Forces To Help Ailing Conservative Blogger", Mediaite, August 1, 2013.
  8. Jonathan Martin, "Coalition of Liberals Strikes Back at Criticism From Centrist Democrats", The New York Times, December 5, 2013.
  9. "Company Overview of Kos Media, LLC". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  10. ""Promoted By" Content on Daily Kos". Daily Kos Support. Retrieved 28 March 2019.
  11. Syed, Moiz; Willis, Derek. "KOS MEDIA, LLC - Coronavirus Bailouts - ProPublica". ProPublica. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  12. James Bikales (6 July 2020). "Here are the major media companies that received coronavirus relief loans". TheHill. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  13. "Dailykos.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics by Quantcast". Quantcast. Archived from the original on 2014-01-26. Retrieved 2013-12-29.
  14. "TIME.com's First Annual Blog Index". Time. 2008-04-06. Retrieved 2010-08-14.
  15. "25 Best Blogs 2009". Time. 2009-02-13. Retrieved 2010-04-30.
  16. Grim, Ryan (13 April 2017). "Daily Kos Is Back". Huffington Post. Huffington Post. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  17. Moulitsas, Markos. "Research 2000: Problems in plain sight". Daily Kos. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
  18. Sargent, Greg. "It's war! Lawyer for DailyKos details lawsuit against Research 2000". The Washington Post. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
  19. "Kos Media LLC et al v. Research 2000 et al". Justia. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
  20. Blumenthal, Mark. "Daily Kos vs. Research 2000 Lawsuit Settled". HuffPost. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
  21. Kos (2005-12-06). "Changing of the Guard". Daily Kos. Retrieved 2006-10-05.
  22. Kos (2005-12-12). "The 2006 class of guest bloggers". Retrieved 2006-10-05.
  23. Media Blog on National Review Online Archived 2007-08-08 at the Wayback Machine
  24. Speakers – Bay Area Law School Technology Conference, 2005 Archived 2007-08-28 at the Wayback Machine
  25. Armando (2006-06-07). "Blogging Anonymity". Daily Kos. Retrieved 2006-10-04.
  26. "We'll Meet Again - UPDATED".
  27. "Daily Kos: Armando". Daily Kos.
  28. "North By East: Blogging Liberally". Downeast Magazine. 2006-11-01. Archived from the original on 2006-11-14. Retrieved 2007-03-22.
  29. "Features | DIGITAL CELEBRITY". www.portlandphoenix.com. Archived from the original on 2005-04-26. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
  30. "About Daily Kos". www.dailykos.com. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
  31. "Steven Gilliard Jr., 42, Dies; Founder of Liberal Political Blog". The New York Times. 2007-06-06. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
  32. "Introducing Our New Featured Writers". Daily Kos.
  33. Bernstein, David S. (2006-06-21). "How to neuter the Republicans". The Phoenix. Retrieved 2006-07-19.
  34. Thompson, Doug (2006-07-16). "On second thought…". Archived from the original on 2006-08-29. Retrieved 2010-08-14.
  35. Grynbaum, Michael M. (2006-07-06). "Bloggers battle old-school media for political clout". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2006-07-19.
  36. Curry, Tom (2006-06-16). "Warner looks left, looks right, looks toward '08". NBC News. Retrieved 2006-07-19.
  37. "C-SPAN". Archived from the original on 2006-06-19. Retrieved 2006-07-19.
  38. Yearly Kos Tag, Listing of Diaries on Daily Kos. Retrieved on 2006-07-19.
  39. YearlyKos (2006-10-03). "And the YearlyKos 2007 location is..." Daily Kos. Retrieved 2006-10-04.
  40. Eligon, John; Martin, Jonathan (April 11, 2017). "Ron Estes, a Republican, Survives Tight House Race to Win Kansas Seat". Retrieved April 12, 2017.
  41. Balcerzak, Ashley (April 10, 2017). "Flurry of Spending in Kansas 4th". Retrieved April 12, 2017.
  42. Nir, D. Daily Kos July 28, 2016.
  43. Bluestein, Greg (April 5, 2017). "Nearly 200K Donors Help Jon Ossoff Net Record Fundraising Haul". Retrieved January 13, 2018. Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
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