The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series dedicated to chronicling the eschaton. Please recommend and add stories or items of import or interest.
Next month on April 19th we will mark the tenth anniversary of the OND. It will also mark a decade of helping compile the OND either as editor or posting comments, and really, the news over the past two months have been some of the most frustrating and depressing I’ve chronicled. There is not specific story per se, but rather it is the ongoing daily deluge of meanness and hate coming oozing from our nation’s capital that has becoming overwhelming. I wonder if Congress or the media even realize how late in the day it is for our constitutional democracy?
I’m going to digress a bit from the diary’s main focus, so please indulge me. I believe I first started reading Daily Kos during the 2004 election and joined the site a year later. I found out about the blog through the Daou Report that once was posted on Salon.com. I’m not much of joiner, so it took me a while to decide to make a user. Sometime in the spring of 2007, I suggested that a front pager should post a late night open thread news round-up like the Midday Open Thread for us night owls.
After waiting a week or two hoping the idea would be picked-up, I posted the first Overnight News Digest, in the spirit of the open source community, myself. What really helped the series get launched was its rescue by Rippen Kitten of the Rescue Rangers. The early ONDs were rescued quite frequently. Meteor Blades, who would go on to found the Night Owl News series, was also an early champion of the series and has been a long time supporter of OND. Thank you to both the Rangers and MB for giving light to a little seed of an idea.
I was the sole nightly editor initially, before people started to volunteer to compile the day’s news and give me a night off now and then. Eventually, I decided to step away from editing completely. Again, if memory serves, first ek hornbeck and then Neon Vincent took over as editor-in-chief and both kept the series going for years and each have done a great job.
Since the first digest, 33 other editors have posted the night’s OND. They each deserve a call out. So a big thank you to annetteboardman, BentLiberal, Chaoslillith, Chitown Kev, count, Dems2004, Doctor RJ, ek hornbeck, Horsefeathers, Interceptor7, jlms qkw (and socks for jlms), JML9999, Limelite, maggiejean, Man Oh Man, Mishima, MTmofo, Neon Vincent, OCD, Oke, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, Pluto, rfall, ScottyUrb, side pocket, Sidof79, skymutt, smileycreek, tecampbell, testvet6778, wader, and webranding for either editing or hosting at least one OND.
Our dearly departed, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, is the series most recommended editor with 332 recommends for the OND posted on January 30, 2009. Wader, who left DK during the past presidential primary, is the series most prolific editor having posted 384 digests before his self-exile. I also want to again express my thanks to side pocket for the lifetime subscription, I still am honored by your kind generosity to me and many others.
Also a thank you to our nightly readers who comment and post additional news stories. For instance, Trix has been here almost nightly since the OND #2 and cfk usually drops by to share her well wishes, but there are many, many other ‘kosians’ who have been regulars. The series would not have survived so well this past decade without your nightly infusion of recommends and comments.
So although the news we chronicle nightly may not be the most optimistic and hopeful picture of our country and our world, I believe our little neighborhood community of nocturnal newshounds provides a little solace and comfort to one another and that, at least, gives me hope in these dark times. As bleak as it becomes, we will still try to be here nightly to chronicle the news. We resist. We persist.
And now tonight’s news…