The Daily Background

Uh-oh. You must have mistakenly wandered into my boring ‘about me’ page expecting to find something interesting here. Sorry to disappoint.

My name is Arlen Parsa. I’m a full-time college student majoring in documentary film at a midwestern arts and media school. I’m originally from the Northeast, (New Hampshire’s second Congressional district, if you care), and consider that my home, despite only spending most of each year at school in Chicago. I’ve been a blogger since 2004, but The Daily Background has only existed since December 4th, 2005.

I blog about politics and current events from a progressive point of view.

My writing and analysis have been referenced and/or linked to by the Associated Press, Reuters news service, the Dilbert comic strip (syndicated in 2000 papers worldwide), The San Francisco Chronicle, multiple New York Times blogs, a USA Today blog, Raw Story, Slate, The Columbia Journalism Review Online, Salon, The Center for American Progress Progress Report, MyDD, The Inquirer, The Huffington Post, C|Net, and some of the most influential political blogs on the internet (such as Daily Kos, Americablog, Crooks & Liars, Shakespeare’s Sister, Feministing, ThinkProgress, BuzzFlash, Wonkette, Pandagon, Boing Boing, TalkLeft, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Firedoglake, The Carpetbagger Report, Taylor Marsh, War & Piece, Dvorak Uncensored, and Tech President among others).

In 2007 I wrote an exclusive report about offensive viral political videos possibly being linked to a major GOP ad firm that ABC News’ Investigative Unit picked up on their website (as did the NYT on theirs).

In early 2009, I wrote an exclusive report about how employees working for the consumer electronics company Belkin were paying people to write positive reviews of their products. That story was picked up by the Associated Press and many others (David Pogue of the New York Times crowned me the “internet hero of the week” for that in fact).

I’ve also been linked to numerous times on the front pages of Slashdot, Digg, Engadget, Gizmodo, and Reddit, Metafilter, College Humor, and many other tech related sites. Additionally, I’ve had work published at Truthout, IraqSlogger, BradBlog, Scoop.co.nz, The Columbia Chronicle, and been featured on the radio a couple times.

Oh, and Townhall.com bloggers National Review Online bloggers, Hot Air, Protein Wisdom, and The John Birch Society have cited me. I still can’t get over those ones.