Update on the future of Daily Kos

Friend, I wanted to follow up on an email that Chris sent you waaaay back in February about the state of news media in our country and how Daily Kos is affected. For nearly a decade, there has been a slow demise of our news media institutions, whether print, television or digital -- no one has been spared from the hemorrhaging of jobs. For years, many media outlets were able to rely on advertising revenue for income, but Big Tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, and Google started sucking up an ever-increasing share of the digital advertising market. Media layoffs reached a peak last year with the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout. It was, as Buzzfeed put it; "[a media extinction event](." There is some good news; media layoffs have abated. The bad news is, as daily life returns to something resembling normalcy and the economy rebounds, the jobs lost during earlier years have not returned. However, Daily Kos has been the exception. During the peak of the pandemic, we did find ourselves tightening our budget, but we didn't have to make the hard decision to reduce staff, make pay cuts or issue furloughs. There has been one constant that has allowed Daily Kos to be an outlier -- not just to survive, but to thrive. That outlier is you, Friend, and the thousands of other Daily Kos readers and activists that chip in a few dollars at a time. [Daily Kos is proud to be the country's largest independent, progressive news and activism hub. We don't have billionaire backers or big corporations that are only in it for the bottom line propping us up. In fact, the largest source of our revenue comes from readers and activists like you, meaning we literally couldn't do this work without you. That's why I'm asking you to start a $5 monthly donation to Daily Kos right now.]( [Can't donate monthly? Please click here to chip in $5 one time.]( Thank you for all you do, Amanda McKay, Daily Kos --------------------------------------------------------------- Friend, I wrote to you last year about the dire state of the news media. After more than a decade of terrible developments, the pandemic threatened to become, as Buzzfeed accurately dubbed it, "[a media extinction event](." Now, we finally know the full extent of the damage, and [it's astonishingly bad](. A record-breaking 16,160 newsroom jobs were lost last year. This, during a presidential election featuring the lying-est president in American history and the mainstreaming of fake news and conspiracy theories that eventually led to violence at the Capitol on January 6. The scary thing is no part of the news media is safe. Print, television, and online outlets all shed jobs as the ad dollars that once sustained fact-checked, proofread journalism instead went to tech giants Facebook and Google, who have effectively duopolized online ad revenue. Scarier still, there are no signs of recovery. In 2019, ThinkProgress, one of the largest and longest-running progressive news sites on the internet, shut down. No new outlet emerged to take its place. In 2020, many more traditional, but still left-of-center, outlets like Vice, Vox, and Buzzfeed were forced to [make layoffs, furloughs, benefit cuts, and pay cuts]( to stave off even greater layoffs. The collapse of the news media has terrifying implications for Americans' ability to hold elected officials accountable, and also for how we get our information in moments of crisis, such as the ongoing pandemic. Daily Kos was able to avoid the mass layoffs last year and throughout the past decade because, unlike almost everyone else, our largest source of revenue comes not from advertising, but from grassroots support—that is to say, contributions from readers and activists like you. Contributions of just a few dollars at a time makes sure that we can pay our bills. But what's more, it makes us accountable to you—not to a billionaire backer, hedge fund, or corporate advertisers. We know that in order to keep operating, we have to fight and deliver for what you believe in. [Daily Kos is not immune to the financial challenges facing news publishers today, but we've been able to weather this storm thanks to the support of readers and activists like you. It is essential that independent, progressive media continues providing you news you can do something about—most especially during a time of national crisis, as we work to repair the damage Trump inflicted on our country. Please, click here to start a $5 monthly recurring donation to Daily Kos today.]( [Can't donate monthly? Please click here to make a one-time donation to Daily Kos.]( In solidarity, Chris Bowers, 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](.