END OF THE ROAD: Occupy Democrats/Washington Press exits news articles business
It is with great sadness that we are announcing that the publishing of written news, news analysis, and opinion articles on the Washington Press and Occupy Democrats websites will cease beginning tomorrow May 1st.
The reason for the decision is a strategic pivot to creating and posting video content on social media platforms, one of the few growth areas available for political coverage in these days of unfortunately declining circulation and readership of the written word on social media.
The publishers and owners of both websites have bravely soldiered on with the news and opinion operation for the past few years despite the massive changes in both Facebook algorithms and the ownership of the platform formerly known as Twitter — changes that greatly diminished the distribution of the articles published on the site and prevented them from reaching the larger audiences that they reached in the early days of the websites.
The diminished distribution also led to a shrinking in revenue that has made the website operation financially unviable.
Over 15,000 articles featuring news, news analysis, and opinion from a progressive perspective have been published by Occupy Democrats since it first launched in 2013, and have hopefully helped shape the political conversation in America as a result, counterbalancing the pernicious effects of the misinformation emanating from right-wing propaganda mills.
On a personal note, I joined Occupy Democrats as a writer in March of 2017 just a few weeks after Donald Trump took office hoping to do anything I could to change the dangerous political situation in this country.
Originally, several other writers and I worked out of a pool cabana of a rented home in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles on the tiniest of tables. We cranked out articles at a rapid-fire pace and routinely hit millions of page views a day, all while scrupulously fact-checking our work and linking to our original sources.
Two of the Occupy Democrats writers, myself and Brian Tyler Cohen, even made it to the top 20 of all of the writers posted on Facebook at that time. I was certainly proud to be there on the list with people like Andy Borowitz.
Soon, operations moved to a living room in North Hollywood that was often also the temporary living quarters for recently arrived Central American refugees whom the writers had to navigate around to get to a couch or table to work.
As Facebook changed its algorithms to de-emphasize news content, the writing team dwindled, and the Washington Press website (originally Washington Journal, before PBS objected) was started in an attempt to circumvent the discrimination by Facebook, our primary distribution channel, of content published under the Occupy Democrats banner.
When the pandemic arrived, the reduced writing team went virtual where we have remained ever since. I took over as Managing Editor of the websites in 2022 when my editing duties forced me to curtail writing articles most days in favor of editing the work of others, finding graphics, coming up with titles, and posting on every available platform.
Speaking of our writers, I would like to thank our current crop of regular contributors, Stephanie Bazzle — covering news and news analysis — and Jason Miciak — our thoughtful opinion columnist — for their dedication, craft, and hard work. I hope that they are snatched up shortly by any of the few other publishers remaining in this space where their talents can continue to be utilized.
Regular opinion contributors David Weissman and Mark M. Bello also deserve kudos.
I would also like to thank some of the past writers who have worked on these sites for their contributions, including Ty Ross, Tara Dublin, Ross Rosenfeld, and others who prefer to remain anonymous at this time.
One last shoutout to the other editors who have worked on the sites in the past, including Colin Taylor and Lesley Abravenel, for their contributions.
And of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Occupy Democrats founders Omar and Rafael Rivero for having the foresight to build this organization to begin with and for continuing to let it operate beyond the point when it made any financial sense to continue.
Of course, Occupy Democrats will continue to post memes and videos across social media for your edification, enjoyment, and outrage. I will continue to work as an editorial consultant for our video operations, primarily found on our YouTube page.
Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who has read our articles and supported our pages throughout the years. I hope you will follow our YouTube videos and continue to support Occupy Democrats as a source of progressive commentary in the years to come.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on X.
For clarifications, comments, & typos, email: editor@occupydemocrats.com.
