Daily Kos
It functions as a discussion forum and group blog for a variety of netroots activists, whose efforts are primarily directed toward influencing and strengthening the Democratic Party. Additionally, the site features a participatory political encyclopedia, glossaries, and other permanent content.
Daily Kos is an example of a collaborative blog, offering comment-posting privileges to its visitors.
Daily Kos was founded by Markos Moulitsas (Kos from the last syllable of his first name, his nickname while in the military) in 2002. In 2007 its parent company, Kos Media, LLC, began a fellowship program to help fund a new generation of progressive activists.
About a dozen contributing editors provide content for the site, with three to four new editors being chosen from the Daily Kos community every year.
Daily Kos has an average weekday traffic of over 800,000 visits, and receives over 20 million visits per month. It is financially sustained by advertising, with Google AdSense and Blogads. Members can also purchase an ad-free subscription to the site if they want.
The website runs on the Scoop content management system.
In 2009, Time magazine listed the Daily Kos in its "Most Overrated Blogs" section. Despite the listing, Time magazine readers named the Daily Kos the second best blog.
Content
Moulitsas and a small group of selected users post entries directly to the front page; other users can post "diaries," the titles of which appear on the front page in reverse chronological order, with special attention and longer display time for those diaries highly recommended by other users. The other major source of content is the comments posted in response to front page entries and diaries. Comments for popular or controversial diaries or front page threads can run into the thousands.
Front page entries and diaries often take the form of a news story from an outside source interspersed with commentary from the author of the diary or post.
Sometimes these stories contain a request for action from other members of the community, such as to get involved with a particular campaign, give money to a candidate or contact an elected official about an issue. Some front page entries are called "open threads", which are an open platform for comments on any issue.
One of the versions of these open threads are "live threads" of commentary on important events happening in real time, such as debates or elections.
Administrators and "power" users have the ability to edit, delete, or otherwise prohibit diaries and responses posted by members who do not have such privileges.
DailyKos has partnered with Research 2000 to produce nonpartisan polling for presidential, congressional and gubernatorial races across the country.
Contributors
Prominent contributors
Numerous political figures use Daily Kos to publish frequent or occasional content, including consultants, candidates, and sitting members of Congress. Prominent posters include:
Contributing Editors
BarbinMD (Barbara Morrill)
brownsox (Arjun Jaikumar)
DarkSyde
DavidNYC
DemFromCT (Greg Dworkin)
Devilstower (Mark Sumner)
DHinMI (Dana Houle)
georgia10 (Georgia Logothetis)
Hunter (Michael Lazzaro)
Jed L (Jed Lewison)
Kagro X (David Waldman)
mcjoan (Joan McCarter)
Meteor Blades (Timothy Lange)
MissLaura (Laura Clawson)
Plutonium Page (Page van der Linden)
Scout Finch (Jennifer Bruenjes)
smintheus (Michael Clark)
Steve Singiser
SusanG (Susan Gardner)
Trapper John (Jake McIntyre)
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," and simply "FPers") who are 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
2006: georgia10; SusanG; mcjoan; DarkSyde; Superribbie (announced as a front-pager, but backed out the next day, citing time constraints)
2007: BarbinMD; Kagro X; Devilstower; MissLaura
2008: brownsox; Scout Finch; smintheus; Jed L.
2009: Steve Singiser
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.
He also had his own political blogging website, called Swords Crossed, 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. For 2 months, Armando would resurface periodically, and all of his comments were accompanied by a signature line stating that he would be returning to blogging in December 2006.
Armando did indeed resurface, 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."
Another contributor posts pseudonymously as "DarkSyde" 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. 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) is a front page regular, best known for his recurring Cheers & Jeers feature, in which he bestows plaudits and brickbats on various newsmakers. He lives with his partner Michael (known as "Common Sense Mainer"), a cat named Vegas, and his beloved chocolate lab, Molly.
However, Moulitsas had stated that he was deliberately selecting candidates who were not receiving significant financial support from other sources; candidates who were expected to win — or even be competitive — were, by and large, already being funded by the DNC, DCCC, and other national and regional organizations.
He also argued that the campaign was successful in that it forced several Republican incumbents to spend time and money defending "safe" seats that they had never had to defend before. For example, between Tom DeLay in Texas and Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado, Moulitsas calculates that the seed money provided by the blog's fundraising tied up well over ten times as much GOP money in return, and kept two of the GOP's most prolific fundraisers back home campaigning in their own districts for several weeks each, rather than roaming the country raising money for other candidates, as they had in past elections.
At least two of his candidates came exceptionally close to winning what would have been significant upsets.
Daily Kos led a fundraising campaign again in the 2006 midterm election campaign in conjunction with MyDD and Swing State Project. This time around, they raised over 1.4 million dollars for 17 "Netroots Candidates," of which 8 were victorious: Jim Webb (VA-Sen), Jon Tester (MT-Sen), Tim Walz (MN-01), Joe Sestak (PA-07), Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23), Patrick Murphy (PA-08), Jerry McNerney (CA-11), Paul Hodes (NH-02).
Several other Kos-endorsed candidates came within 3 percentage points of winning: Larry Kissell (NC-08), Gary Trauner (WY-AL), Linda Stender (NJ-07) and Darcy Burner (WA-08). The event was widely covered in the traditional media including Capitol Hill Blue, The Boston Globe and MSNBC.
C-Span also carried portions of the convention.
The event was generally 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. In 2008, the conference was held in Austin, Texas, with a surprise visit from Al Gore.
Pittsburgh was chosen in part due to its environmental merits, as the city is a leader in green building, with more square footage than any other city in the country. In addition, the city has a rich labor union history, which also was a factor in its selection.
Controversy
Dean campaign consultancy
In 2003, Moulitsas was retained by the Howard Dean campaign as a technical advisor, an arrangement he disclosed on the site the next day. A year and a half later, when Daily Kos criticized Armstrong Williams for accepting money to promote George W. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place.
Conflict between supporters of Obama and Clinton
In early 2008, a major conflict erupted between Daily Kos users due to the rivalry between the two Democratic presidential candidates they supported: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It does not mean that if conditions get better I won't 'work' at DailyKos again," Alegre wrote, promising to come back only "if we ever get to the point where we're engaging each other in discussion rather than facing off in shouting matches."
ABC News senior correspondent Jake Tapper described the disagreement:
This is how ugly things have gotten between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- Clinton supporters are staging what they call a "strike" at the influential liberal website DailyKos.
hese diarists' boycott of DailyKos is indicative of the turmoil in which the Democratic party finds itself.
On March 17, 2008, Moulitsas stated that Senator Hillary Clinton did not stand for the principles behind Daily Kos and said Clinton "doesn't deserve fairness on this site." He equated the Democratic primary to a "civil war." His statement was precipitated by a 'strike' conducted by several prominent pro-Clinton bloggers, even though none of these posters were paid or in any way officially linked to the site. Daniel Schultz (known by his username "pastordan"), a United Church of Christ minister from Wisconsin.
MotherTalkers.com is another "Daily Kos Community" focusing on the intersection of motherhood and politics.
http:www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=sm8dailykos&r=36. http:www.cjrdaily.org/politics/its_a_pig_anyway_you_look_at_i.php.
"TRANSCRIPT: Dave Winer interviews Trippi on WSJ story & blogging ethics (with poll)".