Twenty years ago today, Randy Shaw started Beyond Chron—inspired by national blogs like Daily Kos that revolutionized online media. I was Beyond Chron’s managing editor for many years, until I left 11 years ago to go work at Daily Kos. A month ago, I was laid off at Daily Kos – along with about 15 other employees. It’s part of a bigger trend in political media & digital activism, and a cautionary tale on what to expect in the years to come.
But I still believe in the power of the Internet as a force for good, which Howard Dean once called the “most empowering and democratizing invention since the printing press.”
Conventional wisdom says that all online progressive groups are struggling, and that is part of the story. After Joe Biden became president, those who grew during the Trump Era came to realize they could not keep the same number of staff. MoveOn did layoffs, as did others.
But Daily Kos was also hit hard by two funding streams: a disruption of the lead gen business (read Markos’ story to understand what that means), and declining ad revenue.
The latter has long been a problem with independent blogs. Ad revenue puts them at the mercy of Big Tech – whether that be Google ads, or Facebook’s changing algorithm.
Beyond Chron survives because it is funded by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. Unlike its first decade it no longer has several paid staff. It also now runs new stories weekly rather than nearly every weekday as in the past.
If online media relies on ad revenue to survive, websites must be cautious on growing when times are good. But they also need to do more than chase traffic: independent blogs need to build an audience who will consistently return to a site that gives them a good product.
As Taegan Goddard wrote last month on PoliticalWire: “a media company solely focused on finding traffic is at the mercy of social media platforms or search engines. They alter their articles so that they have a better chance of going viral or being ranked in search results … [But] it takes time and patience to build an audience. It’s hard work and requires a daily commitment to putting out a great product. It means listening to feedback from readers.”
Ten years ago, when Randy asked me to write about Beyond Chron’s 10th anniversary, I said that blogs had to evolve and adapt. At the time, Facebook was a boon to Daily Kos traffic.
But then, Facebook changed its algorithm to de-prioritize political content and now also charges pages to “boost” a post. Progressives still must be on social media, because that’s where people are. But to get any traction, you must get your readers to organically re-share content. Again, you can only do that if you have proactively built an audience.
As for Artificial Intelligence? A.I. is artificial, but it’s certainly not intelligent. There’s now a real danger that quality media will get drowned out by bots. Human nature is lazy, so I can only envision this crap saturating the Internet—whether we like it or not.
But we will also need real people to quality-control whatever gets churned out. And if news sites focus more on building an audience than just chasing traffic, the legitimate articles written by humans can continue to be effective and influential.
What does this all mean after 20 years? Don’t despair at the rise of Big Tech and A.I. The Internet is still the most democratizing invention since the printing press. And by building an online community, we can still get out the truth. Now, let’s get busy.
Paul Hogarth is looking for work that will (a) be very impactful for the upcoming election and (b) help build progressive political infrastructure—online and offline. Check out his profile on LinkedIn, and you can also email him at paulhogarth78@gmail.com
