Re: I am pleased to report that an exception has been made by you

Friend, there is nothing else like Daily Kos in the media landscape: participatory, grassroots-funded, progressive news you can do something about. What's more, if Daily Kos were to shut down--as has happened to other progressive media outlets, such as Think Progress in 2019 and most of the original progressive blogosphere a few years earlier--it's a good bet that nothing would ever take our place. The fact is that journalism and publishing are shrinking, as social media giants and Big Tech continue to rise. [According to Axios](, there have been multiple thousands of newsroom layoffs almost every year for over a decade now, with the worst losses taking place in 2018, 2019 and 2020. What's happening is that eyeballs and advertising dollars that once went to support journalists and publishers are now going in ever-increasing amounts to Facebook, Google, and Amazon, [which now account for almost 70% of all digital ad spending](. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated these trends, and [no media publisher is immune](. As long as these trends continue, there will never be a new Daily Kos to take our place if we disappear, as many progressive outlets founded in the early 2000s are already gone. There is just no room for a new independent publisher to rise in the contemporary media environment, which is dominated by social networks run by enormous corporations. [If you want participatory, grassroots-funded, progressive news you can do something about, please start a $5 recurring monthly donation to Daily Kos. The months right after an election can be some of the most difficult for political publishers, and starting a recurring donation is the single best way you can make sure Daily Kos is always around to help you fight back on the news stories you care about the most.]( [If you can't make a recurring donation at this time, even a one-time donation helps keep us fighting.]( Thank you for all that you do, Chris Bowers Executive Campaign Director, Daily Kos P.S. Below, you can see an email on this topic that I sent you earlier in the month. --------------------------------------------------------------- Friend, there is no other media organization like Daily Kos, and there never will be. Our unique structure defines who we are: - Small donations from our community of readers and activists are our largest source of income. This makes us accountable to our grassroots donors, rather than to big corporate advertisers or a small number of wealthy contributors. - Daily Kos take sides in the fights we write about, rather than just explaining the news or promoting a false balance. For example, we have signed up nearly 80,000 volunteers to help get out the Democratic vote in 2020, and over the last three weeks we have generated more than 650,000 actions to help fulfill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's final wish of having the next president name her replacement. We are here to fight back, and so we always provide immediate, impactful ways for our readers to take action on the news stories they are reading. - We give our community a real voice. This means not only letting readers post comments, but giving them the ability to publish their own articles--and even to determine which community article appears high up on the front page of our website for an extended period of time. In fact, many of our most widely read articles are written by our community! There is nothing else like Daily Kos anywhere else in the media landscape: participatory, grassroots-funded, news you can do something about. Being different has served us well, too. While most media companies have been forced to issue pay cuts, furloughs and layoffs over the last few years as Big Tech and social media giants continue to devour an ever-increasing share of online advertising revenue, grassroots donations from our community of readers and activists have allowed us to expand and fuel the resistance to Trump. Even in 2020, through an impeachment trial, a global pandemic, an historic summer of uprisings, and now an election on which our very democracy hinges, your support has allowed us to continue to operate fully-staffed and without paycuts. This has allowed us to generate an historic amount of grassroots activism on the news you care about the most. [Daily Kos exists because of you, to give you progressive, participatory news you can do something about. No matter what happens next, help us keep fighting at full capacity every single day by becoming a $5 monthly donor to Daily Kos.]( [Can't give monthly? A one-time donation will still help us keep fighting. Please click here to give $5.]( Keep fighting, Chris Bowers Executive Campaign Director, Daily Kos If you wish to donate by mail instead, please send a check to Daily Kos, PO Box 70036, Oakland, CA, 94612. Contributions to Daily Kos are not tax deductible. (Please note that we may be slow to process checks during the coronavirus outbreak.) Sent via [ActionNetwork.org](. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Daily Kos, please [click here](.