It is with a heavy heart that I wrap up these eight-plus years of writing things on the Internet. The concurrence between my last day and the end of the Mayan calendar, by the way, is purely coincidental; I do think there will be news after today, and most likely people covering it (anyway, the whole world-ending thing is a great big misunderstanding, I guess). Anyway, there are a lot of people who deserve to be mentioned.
I could really bore you to tears and begin my thank-yous with Vinton Cerf and inventor of the blog Dave Winer, but let’s instead move on to calling out the people who worked with me here at FDL News over the years, those who have come and gone and those still remaining, most of whom get far too little attention, but without whom I could not have had this incredible run. I give a great tip of the cap to editors like Gregg Levine and Scarecrow and Elliott (and every so often, Jane), to the indefatigable Bev Wright at the Book Salon, to my fellow members of the FDL family past and present, like Jon and Spencer and Marcy and Bill and Lisa and Kevin and Pam and Tom and Teddy and Phoenix Woman and Peterr and Eli and on and on, to Michael Whitney and Brian Sonenstein on the activism side, to Ryan Cook and Deveria Flowers and all the other moderators and behind-the-scenes folk I’m sure I’m leaving out.
Jane hired me, and then let me basically set my own course for what this site would look like. She has been ridiculously generous and encouraging to me from Day 1, and I will never forget the opportunity and platform she provided me. She assembled this all-star team of writers and activists and sustained this site during a challenging time for independent media, and I have no doubt that she will continue to succeed. Thanks so much.
Fatster is someone who jumped in when I needed some help maintaining the site over a vacation, and stayed on to produce the best and most variegated daily links roundup on the Internet, reaching levels I could only have hoped to surmount when I did my end-of-the-day tab dump. She’s been a great asset to this site in 2012, and I hope she keeps at it.
I could not even begin to count the sources, progressive friends, think tankers, activist organizations, communications people, legislative aides, lawmakers, fellow journalists and bloggers, and basically everyone who helped me at any point in some form or fashion with putting together a post. I may not have always lined up on the same side as them on every issue, but they were always willing to help me out and engage where necessary. It takes a village to build a news cycle blog.
And to you, the reader. Over the past couple weeks since I made this announcement that I would step aside, I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and kind words from countless folks. People who do this for a while will tell you that they always, in the back of their mind, fear (and probably are just convinced) that they are merely screaming into a dark void. It means so much to me that you all have reached out to let me know that, in some meager way, I managed to have a measure of impact, at least at that individual level. This is all a writer can really hope for, and I’m humbled by your comments and emails and tweets.
My wife Mary is the most wonderful, patient person in the whole world, and I’m certain she will be pleased to get to go to sleep at night without the piercing light of an active laptop to contend with. The biggest thanks goes to her since none of you, at least as far as I know from my vantage point, have to put up with that. Also I’m sorry I left the back door open last night. Like blogging, marriage is a work in progress.
I really and truly have no idea what I’m going to do next as far as this part of my life goes. My wife tells me that I’ll last a month, tops, before crawling back. I don’t really think so (I gave a fuller explanation of my thought process in making this decision on Sam Seder’s radio show, if you’re interested), but she seems to know me well. So we shall see.
If anything does change, I’m sure I’ll let people know @ddayen. And if I do move forward, I hope I can count on you to move forward with me.
This has been a great privilege. Thank you.
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