Josh Marshall
Encyclopedia
Joshua Micah Marshall is an American Polk Award-winning journalist who founded Talking Points Memo
, which The New York Times Magazine
called "one of the most popular and most respected sites" in the blogosphere
. He currently presides over a network of sites that operate under the TPM Media banner and average 400,000 page views every weekday and 750,000 unique visitors every month. Marshall and his work have been profiled by The New York Times
, the Los Angeles Times
, the Financial Times
, National Public Radio, The New York Times Magazine
, the Columbia Journalism Review
, Bill Moyers Journal, and GQ. Hendrik Hertzberg
, a senior editor at The New Yorker
, compares Marshall to the influential founders of Time
magazine. "Marshall is in the line of the great light-bulb-over-the-head editors. He’s like Briton Hadden
or Henry Luce
. He’s created something new."
of California and Princeton University
and earned a Ph.D.
in American history from Brown University
. In the mid-1990s, Marshall designed websites for law firms and published an online news site about Internet law, which included interviews with prominent scholars such as Lawrence Lessig
.
He began writing freelance articles about Internet free speech for The American Prospect
in 1997 and was soon hired as an associate editor. He worked for the Prospect for three years and in 1999 moved to D.C. to become their Washington editor.
He often clashed with the top editors at the Prospect, over both ideology and the direction of the website.
and Andrew Sullivan
, Marshall started Talking Points Memo during the 2000 Florida election recount
. "I really liked what seemed to me to be the freedom of expression of this genre of writing," Marshall told the Columbia Journalism Review. "And, obviously, given the issues that I had with the Prospect, that appealed to me a lot."
He left his job at the Prospect early in 2001 and continued to blog while writing for The Washington Monthly
, The Atlantic, The New Yorker
, Salon.com
, and the New York Post
. In 2002, Marshall used Talking Points Memo to publicize Trent Lott's
controversial comments praising Strom Thurmond's
1948 presidential run as a segregationist
. According to the Kennedy School of Government, Marshall was instrumental in fueling the ensuing scandal that eventually led to Trent Lott's resignation as Senate Minority Leader.
As a result of the Lott story, traffic to Talking Points Memo spiked from 8,000 to 20,000 page views a day. In the fall of 2003, as people focused on the failure to find WMD's in Iraq
, there was a new surge of traffic to the site; "I remember there being peak days of 60,000 page views, which was really incredible." Marshall started selling ads on his site and by the end of 2004 was earning $10,000 a month, making him one of a handful of what The New York Times Magazine dubbed "elite bloggers" who earned enough money to make blogging a full-time occupation.
During the 2008 US election campaign, many independent news sites and political blogs saw a wave of "explosive growth". Talking Points Memo experienced the largest surge in traffic, growing from 32,000 unique visitors in September 2007 to 458,000 unique visitors in September 2008, a 1,321% year-to-year increase in the size of its audience.
. This site features a collection of blogs about a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues written by academics, journalists and former public officials among others.
Marshall expanded his operation again in 2006, launching TPMmuckraker. The site focuses on investigative reporting of political corruption, and was originally staffed by Paul Kiel and Justin Rood. Rood has since moved on to ABC
and its blog The Blotter. Kiel has recently been joined by two new staff reporter-bloggers, Laura McGann and Spencer Ackerman
. TPMmuckraker has attempted to organize its readers to plow through and read document dump
s by governmental entities engaging in cover-up
s.
TPM Media operates out of an office in Manhattan and currently employs seven reporters, including two in Washington
.
by the Bush administration. Marshall won The Polk Award for Legal Reporting
for his coverage of the story, which "led the news media" and "connected the dots and found a pattern of federal prosecutors being forced from office for failing to do the Bush Administration's bidding." Columbia Journalism Review
also credited Marshall's news organization for being "almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the story of the fired U.S. Attorneys to a boil." The ensuing scandal resulted in the resignations of several high-level government officials; the Polk award in particular honored Marshall for his "tenacious investigative reporting" which "sparked interest by the traditional news media and led to the resignation of Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales
."
After a weekend writer noticed that the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas
was being replaced with a former adviser to Karl Rove
, Marshall discovered that U.S. Attorney Carol Lam
was also being asked to resign. Carol Lam successfully prosecuted Republican
California
Representative
Duke Cunningham
on bribery charges and was in the middle of an ongoing criminal investigation into a congressional scandal of historic proportions. "I was stunned by it," Marshall told the Financial Times
. "Normally, in a case like that, the prosecutor would be untouchable."
National newspapers were slow to pick up the story. Time
magazine's Washington bureau chief Jay Carney
went so far as to accuse Marshall of "seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely exist." By the time The New York Times
first reported on Lam's firing (on page 17), Marshall and his news sites had already posted 15 articles on the story.
Two months after posting his accusatory article, Carney apologized to Marshall. "Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo and everyone else out there whose instincts told them there was something deeply wrong and even sinister about the firings... deserve tremendous credit." Carney went on to write, "I was wrong. Very nice work, and thanks for holding my feet to the fire."
For doggedly pursuing the story, Arianna Huffington
nominated Joshua Marshall and the Talking Points Memo team to the Time 100
.
.
Marshall married Millet Israeli in March 2005, and the couple live in New York City with their two young sons and a dog named Simon.
Talking Points Memo
Talking Points Memo is a web-based political journalism organization created and run by Josh Marshall, journalist and historian covering issues from a "politically left perspective,". It debuted on November 12, 2000...
, which The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
called "one of the most popular and most respected sites" in the blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
. He currently presides over a network of sites that operate under the TPM Media banner and average 400,000 page views every weekday and 750,000 unique visitors every month. Marshall and his work have been profiled by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
, National Public Radio, The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
, the Columbia Journalism Review
Columbia Journalism Review
The Columbia Journalism Review is an American magazine for professional journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961....
, Bill Moyers Journal, and GQ. Hendrik Hertzberg
Hendrik Hertzberg
Hendrik Hertzberg is an American journalist, best known as the principal political commentator for The New Yorker magazine. He has also been a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and editor of The New Republic, and is the author of ¡Obámanos! The Rise of a New Political Era and Politics:...
, a senior editor at The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, compares Marshall to the influential founders of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine. "Marshall is in the line of the great light-bulb-over-the-head editors. He’s like Briton Hadden
Briton Hadden
Briton Hadden was the co-founder of Time magazine with his Yale classmate Henry Luce. He was Time's first editor and the inventor of its revolutionary writing style, known as Timestyle...
or Henry Luce
Henry Luce
Henry Robinson Luce was an influential American publisher. He launched and closely supervised a stable of magazines that transformed journalism and the reading habits of upscale Americans...
. He’s created something new."
Early career
Marshall is a graduate of the Webb SchoolsThe Webb Schools
The Webb Schools is the collective name for two private schools for grades 9-12, founded by Thompson Webb, located in Claremont, California. The Webb School of California for boys was established in 1922, and the Vivian Webb School for girls in 1981. Both are primarily boarding schools, but they...
of California and Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
and earned a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in American history from Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
. In the mid-1990s, Marshall designed websites for law firms and published an online news site about Internet law, which included interviews with prominent scholars such as Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence "Larry" Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive...
.
He began writing freelance articles about Internet free speech for The American Prospect
The American Prospect
The American Prospect is a monthly American political magazine dedicated to American liberalism. Based in Washington, DC, The American Prospect is a journal "of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics" which focuses on United States politics...
in 1997 and was soon hired as an associate editor. He worked for the Prospect for three years and in 1999 moved to D.C. to become their Washington editor.
He often clashed with the top editors at the Prospect, over both ideology and the direction of the website.
Reaching a critical mass
Inspired by political bloggers such as Mickey KausMickey Kaus
Robert Michael Kaus , better known as Mickey Kaus, is an American journalist, pundit, and author best known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010. Kaus is the author of The End of Equality and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The...
and Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....
, Marshall started Talking Points Memo during the 2000 Florida election recount
Florida election recount
The Florida election recount of 2000 was a period of vote re-counting that occurred following the unclear results of the 2000 United States presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, specifically the Florida results. The election was ultimately settled in favor of George W. Bush when...
. "I really liked what seemed to me to be the freedom of expression of this genre of writing," Marshall told the Columbia Journalism Review. "And, obviously, given the issues that I had with the Prospect, that appealed to me a lot."
He left his job at the Prospect early in 2001 and continued to blog while writing for The Washington Monthly
The Washington Monthly
The Washington Monthly is a bimonthly nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C.The magazine's founder is Charles Peters, who started the magazine in 1969 and continues to write the "Tilting at Windmills" column in each issue. Paul Glastris, former...
, The Atlantic, The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, and the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
. In 2002, Marshall used Talking Points Memo to publicize Trent Lott's
Trent Lott
Chester Trent Lott, Sr. , is a former United States Senator from Mississippi and has served in numerous leadership positions in the House of Representatives and the Senate....
controversial comments praising Strom Thurmond's
Strom Thurmond
James Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes...
1948 presidential run as a segregationist
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
. According to the Kennedy School of Government, Marshall was instrumental in fueling the ensuing scandal that eventually led to Trent Lott's resignation as Senate Minority Leader.
As a result of the Lott story, traffic to Talking Points Memo spiked from 8,000 to 20,000 page views a day. In the fall of 2003, as people focused on the failure to find WMD's in Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, there was a new surge of traffic to the site; "I remember there being peak days of 60,000 page views, which was really incredible." Marshall started selling ads on his site and by the end of 2004 was earning $10,000 a month, making him one of a handful of what The New York Times Magazine dubbed "elite bloggers" who earned enough money to make blogging a full-time occupation.
During the 2008 US election campaign, many independent news sites and political blogs saw a wave of "explosive growth". Talking Points Memo experienced the largest surge in traffic, growing from 32,000 unique visitors in September 2007 to 458,000 unique visitors in September 2008, a 1,321% year-to-year increase in the size of its audience.
Launching TPM Media
In 2005, Marshall launched TPMCafeTPMCafe
TPMCafe is a center-left blog portal created by Josh Marshall as a spin-off blog to his popular Talking Points Memo. It debuted on May 31, 2005....
. This site features a collection of blogs about a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues written by academics, journalists and former public officials among others.
Marshall expanded his operation again in 2006, launching TPMmuckraker. The site focuses on investigative reporting of political corruption, and was originally staffed by Paul Kiel and Justin Rood. Rood has since moved on to ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
and its blog The Blotter. Kiel has recently been joined by two new staff reporter-bloggers, Laura McGann and Spencer Ackerman
Spencer Ackerman
Spencer Ackerman is an American national security reporter and blogger. He began his career at The New Republic and currently writes for Wired magazine's national security blog, ....
. TPMmuckraker has attempted to organize its readers to plow through and read document dump
Document dump
A document dump is the act of responding to an adversary's request for information by presenting the adversary with a large quantity of data that is transferred in a manner that indicates unfriendliness, hostility, or a legal conflict between the transmitter and the receiver of the information...
s by governmental entities engaging in cover-up
Cover-up
A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information...
s.
TPM Media operates out of an office in Manhattan and currently employs seven reporters, including two in Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
.
U.S. Attorney Scandal
In 2007, Marshall was instrumental in exposing another national scandal, the politically-motivated dismissal of U.S. attorneysDismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy
The dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy was initiated by the unprecedented midterm dismissal of seven United States Attorneys on December 7, 2006 by the George W. Bush administration's Department of Justice. Congressional investigations focused on whether the Department of Justice and the White...
by the Bush administration. Marshall won The Polk Award for Legal Reporting
George Polk Awards
The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States.-History:...
for his coverage of the story, which "led the news media" and "connected the dots and found a pattern of federal prosecutors being forced from office for failing to do the Bush Administration's bidding." Columbia Journalism Review
Columbia Journalism Review
The Columbia Journalism Review is an American magazine for professional journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961....
also credited Marshall's news organization for being "almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the story of the fired U.S. Attorneys to a boil." The ensuing scandal resulted in the resignations of several high-level government officials; the Polk award in particular honored Marshall for his "tenacious investigative reporting" which "sparked interest by the traditional news media and led to the resignation of Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
."
After a weekend writer noticed that the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
was being replaced with a former adviser to Karl Rove
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
, Marshall discovered that U.S. Attorney Carol Lam
Carol Lam
Carol Chien-Hua Lam is a former United States Attorney for the Southern District of California. Lam was sworn into office on an interim basis on September 4, 2002. On November 12, 2002, Lam was further sworn in as a Senate confirmed Presidential appointee. She oversaw the Rep. Randy "Duke"...
was also being asked to resign. Carol Lam successfully prosecuted Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Duke Cunningham
Duke Cunningham
Randall Harold Cunningham , usually known as Randy or Duke, is United States Navy veteran, convicted felon, and former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from California's 50th Congressional District from 1991 to 2005.Cunningham resigned from the House on November 28,...
on bribery charges and was in the middle of an ongoing criminal investigation into a congressional scandal of historic proportions. "I was stunned by it," Marshall told the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
. "Normally, in a case like that, the prosecutor would be untouchable."
National newspapers were slow to pick up the story. Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's Washington bureau chief Jay Carney
Jay Carney
James "Jay" Carney is an American journalist and President Barack Obama's second White House Press Secretary. Prior to his appointment as Press Secretary, replacing Robert Gibbs, he was director of communications to Vice President Joe Biden...
went so far as to accuse Marshall of "seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely exist." By the time The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
first reported on Lam's firing (on page 17), Marshall and his news sites had already posted 15 articles on the story.
Two months after posting his accusatory article, Carney apologized to Marshall. "Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo and everyone else out there whose instincts told them there was something deeply wrong and even sinister about the firings... deserve tremendous credit." Carney went on to write, "I was wrong. Very nice work, and thanks for holding my feet to the fire."
For doggedly pursuing the story, Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington is a Greek American author and syndicated columnist. She is best known as co-founder of the news website The Huffington Post. A popular conservative commentator in the mid-1990s, she adopted more liberal political beliefs in the late 1990s...
nominated Joshua Marshall and the Talking Points Memo team to the Time 100
Time 100
Time 100 is an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, as assembled by Time. First published in 1999 as a result of a debate among several academics, the list has become an annual event.-History and format:...
.
Future plans
Larger media companies have approached Marshall about buying or investing in his media company. So far, he has decided to maintain his independence.Miscellaneous work
In addition to his own network of news sites, Marshall is a columnist for The HillThe Hill (newspaper)
The Hill, a subsidiary of News Communications Inc., is a newspaper published in Washington, D.C. since 1994.Its first editor was Martin Tolchin, a veteran correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times....
.
Family
Marshall's father was a professor of marine biology. His mother died when he was young.Marshall married Millet Israeli in March 2005, and the couple live in New York City with their two young sons and a dog named Simon.
Prizes & Honors
- George Polk Award for Legal Reporting, 2007
- The WeekThe WeekThe Week, styled as THE WEEK, is a weekly news magazine.-History:It was founded in the United Kingdom by Jolyon Connell in 1995. In April 2001, the magazine began publishing an American edition; an Australian edition followed in October 2008. Dennis Publishing publishes the U.K. and Australian...
Opinion Awards, Blogger of the Year, 2003 & 2007 - GQ Men of the Year, Muckraker, 2007
External links
- Talking Points Memo
- Marshall's biography at Talking Points Memo.
- Video discussion/debate with Marshall and David CornDavid CornDavid Corn is an American political journalist and author and the chief of the Washington bureau for Mother Jones. He has been Washington editor for The Nation and appeared regularly on FOX News, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and BloggingHeads.tv opposite James Pinkerton or other media...
on Bloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers... - Video discussion/debate with Marshall and Mickey KausMickey KausRobert Michael Kaus , better known as Mickey Kaus, is an American journalist, pundit, and author best known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010. Kaus is the author of The End of Equality and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The...
on Bloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...