Mother Jones has published a fair bit about Daily Kos in the past, some of it positive, some of it negative. But I was recently made aware of a bizarre, unsourced claim of theirs that Daily Kos is 98% white, in an article of theirs that doesn't appear to even have a byline. It also contained lines like this:
some bloggers have become remarkably Boss Tweed-like [...] thus far all this digital-democracy stuff [...] skews heavily white and male
I emailed them a week ago about this, but they did not deign to respond. I seriously doubt that they're right on this one, and thus I'd like to know why they're spreading misinformation about us that affects their perceptions and reporting. Follow me below the fold to see why I think they're wrong:
First, Daily Kos is a site about an American political party, and it originally got a lot of users by way of liberal American activists for the Dean campaign. So let's look at the numbers and see if this is reasonable / expected / surprising:
America: As of 2000, 75.1% white, 69.1% non-Hispanic White
Voters: in 2004, whites constituted 84% (142,070k / 176,618k) of registered voters, and 85% (106,588k / 125,736k) of actual voters.
The Democratic Party: 68% white (also, note that "general public" is listed here as 79% white).
Liberals: 83% white; note that this is a profile of people who share an ideology, not of a party -- 40% of Liberals are Independent, even though 92% are considered Dem/Lean Dem in their support, and 81% of them voted for Kerry in 2004.
Liberal American activists for the Dean campaign: 92% white; also, 54% had a post-graduate degree, and 65% had a household income of at least $50,000 (29% made over $100,000!).
Daily Kos (unscientific Demographic Tuesdays poll from late 2006): 81% non-hispanic white, with 3960 respondents total.
So that 81% figure is roughly in line with the 83% of Liberals who are white, the 84% of whites who are registered voters, and the 85% of whites who actually voted.
Note, however, that it is whiter than the general public, and noticeably whiter than the Democratic party. Why is that? Because the rest of the Democratic party is largely split by factors such as ideology, income, race, religion, education, etc., into Disadvantaged Democrats and Conservative Democrats.
So, in conclusion, I seriously doubt that Daily Kos is 98% white -- it's probably more like 80% - 85% white or so. However, it is noticeably whiter than the Democratic Party, and there are reasons for this. It isn't a white people's club so much as an ideological club -- an ideology shared by liberal political activists, and those who share these views are more predisposed to be white than are other Democrats, no doubt for a variety of reasons.
Update: Some people were wondering in the comments, how white is Mother Jones' own readership? I searched for their demographics and looked at their press kit for advertisers, which leaves out race entirely. However, it seems that the average Mother Jones reader is at least as affluent and well-educated as the average liberal if not more so. What's more amusing, though, is that after filling in my personal information for the advertising kit, I recieved a phone call from them soon after inquiring about my interest. Perhaps I should have tried that in the first place? :)