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“The Daily Grind is a lovely little coffee shop in downtown Watkinsville, Georgia. The decor is a wonderful assortment of beautiful antiques and the atmosphere is as soothing as a cool wind on a fall day.”
So said the page at thedailygrind.net in 1999. Events, and domain registrations, were soon to overtake the coffee shop that we can only assume was struggling. We're pretty sure it's not there any more.
In 2000, the domain name was bought by a plucky little one-man Australian news satire operation. Its name: The National Craprag. Its mission: to change its name to something much, much better.
Originally a photocopied A4 page distributed to family and friends of founder Joe Stella in 1998, the Craprag was inspired by a Time magazine article about The Onion. And though Joe didn't read The Onion until years later, he went ahead and based his publication on it anyway.
To this day, there's nothing more thrilling for Joe than to be told about The Onion and how he'd "really like it". He's also aware of The Daily Show and The Chaser. Editing a news satire site involves not living under a rock.
Having hit on the idea to name the Craprag something better—The Daily Grind—Joe registered thedailygrind.net and began work on making it look nicer. In 2000, fellow university revuer Damian Prendergast joined the team. Others from student politics and theatre joined as well over the years.
The site achieved prominence in 2007 when its popular Simbabwe game allowed players to try their hand at destroying a certain African republic. The following year, in the wake of the Wollongong council corruption scandal, our chart linking the various protagonists was a must-read among ICAC and council staff.
Today, with over 1500 articles in the back catalogue plus a handful of satirical Mac software titles (returning soon), The Daily Grind is consistently rated as one of Australia's top two news satire operations, unless you count The Age.
As of 2008, you can also see Daily Grind news stories delivered live at Comicide, the Roxbury Hotel's fortnightly sketch comedy show.
Founder of The Daily Grind, Joe Stella, is perhaps the most high-profile media proprietor in this photograph.
