Talking Points Memo

Talking Points Memo was founded as a political blog in 2000 by Josh Marshall, who until 2004 was the site's sole employee.{{cite news |last1=Seward |first1=Zachary M. |title=TPM sees room for growth through geotargeted advertising |url=https://www.niemanlab.org/2008/12/tpm-sees-room-for-growth-through-geotargeted-advertising/ |work=Nieman Lab |date=December 2, 2008}} In 2005, TPM Media LLC was incorporated, and the company began to grow with more employees and spinoff websites.{{cite journal|last=Carmichael|first= Karen|title=Capital investment: Talking Points Memo launches a Washington bureau, augmenting its reporting firepower|journal=American Journalism Review|volume=31|issue=5|year=2009|page=8}} By 2009 it had 11 employees, and, having previously been funded by ads and reader donations,{{cite magazine |last1=Alterman |first1=Eric |author1-link=Eric Alterman |title=Out of Print |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/03/31/out-of-print |magazine=The New Yorker |date=March 24, 2008}} received angel investments from a group led by Marc Andreessen.{{cite news |last1=Cohen |first1=Noam |title=Now Hiring at Talking Points Memo |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/business/media/13marshall.html |work=The New York Times |date=July 13, 2009}}{{cite news |last1=Anderson |first1=Kevin |title=Andreessen leads funding for US political blog network |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/pda/2009/jul/07/blogging-uspolitics-funding-journalism-businessmodel |work=The Guardian |date=7 July 2009 |language=en}} In 2009, TPM opened a Washington, D.C. office and joined the White House press pool along with several other progressive news outlets to cover the Obama administration.{{cite news |last1=Calderone |first1=Michael |title=TPM joins the pool and makes a splash |url=https://www.politico.com/story/2009/10/tpm-joins-the-pool-and-makes-a-splash-028955 |work=Politico |date=October 30, 2009 |language=en}} The site introduced a subscription service, TPM Prime, in 2012,{{cite web |last1=Bilton |first1=Richard |title=With 11,000 subscribers, Talking Points Memo says its paid product has helped stabilize its business |url=https://www.niemanlab.org/2016/07/with-11000-subscribers-talking-points-memo-says-its-paid-product-has-helped-stabilize-its-business/ |website=Nieman Lab |date=July 19, 2016}} which by 2017 had over 21,000 subscribers,{{cite web |last1=Owen |first1=Laura Hazard |title=Talking Points Memo doubled its subscribers in a year — now it's trying to find new extras for them |url=https://www.niemanlab.org/2017/06/talking-points-memo-doubled-its-subscribers-in-a-year-now-its-trying-to-find-new-extras-for-them/ |website=Nieman Lab |date=June 29, 2017}} and by December 2020 had nearly 35,000 subscribers.{{cite web |last=Marshall |first=Josh |title=The Push for 35,000 |url=https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-push-for-35000/ |website=Talking Points Memo |date=December 7, 2020}}

Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols describe the site as taking a "more raucous and sensational" tone than traditional news media. This includes coining phrases such as "Bamboozlepalooza" to describe George W. Bush's efforts to privatize Social Security, which the blog opposed;{{cite book|title=The Death and Life of American Journalism|last1=McChesney|first1=Robert W.|last2=Nichols|first2=John|publisher=PublicAffairs|year=2010|isbn=978-1-56858-700-4|page=91|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g85l-l-CnbIC&pg=PA91}} and "bitch-slap politics" to refer to the Swiftboating of 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry.{{cite web |last1=Marshall |first1=Josh |title=Well it seems there |url=https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/--97767? |website=Talking Points Memo |date=19 August 2004 |publisher=TPM Media |access-date=January 8, 2023}}

McChesney and Nichols compare the site's style to the muckraking of Upton Sinclair. The more social aspects of the site, which invite crowdsourcing, were compared to La Follette's Weekly. Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, in 2009 said "TPM is really an advocacy operation that has moved toward journalism."

Guest bloggers have included Matthew Yglesias, Robert Reich, Dean Baker, Michael Crowley, and, briefly, vice-presidential candidate John Edwards. Beginning in the summer of 2006, many weekend postings were provided by anonymous blogger DK. On November 11, 2006, DK was revealed to be attorney David Kurtz, who now posts openly under his name.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

In 2007, TPM won a George Polk Award for Legal Reporting for its coverage of the 2006 U.S. Attorneys scandal, becoming the first online-only outlet to receive the award.{{cite news|first=Noam|last=Cohen|url=http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/24/business/blogger.php|title=A Web-only news operation gets its due|work= International Herald Tribune|date= February 24, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080318035209/http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/24/business/blogger.php|archive-date=March 18, 2008}}

• TPMCafe - a "spin-off" blog also created by Josh Marshall, is a companion website that 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.
• TPMmuckraker - a new blog that was founded when Marshall expanded his operation where journalists working for the TPM collective, such as Paul Kiel and Justin Rood, investigate political corruption.
• TPMDC - founded in January 2007, the Horse's Mouth, is a blog authored by Greg Sargent with a remit to cover how Washington politics was covered by the major news outlets, that moved home from The American Prospect to the TPM Media family.[http://www.prospect.org/horsesmouth/2007/01/post_492.html The American Prospect] {{dead link|date=May 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} Sargent had begun writing for TPMCafe in July 2006. In 2008, Sargent stopped posting to the Horse's Mouth blog and began posting to a new blog called TPM Election Central, which focused on covering the 2008 elections. In 2009, TPM Election Central was renamed TPMDC, to cover politics from Washington, D.C., and Marshall hired journalists based in Washington to report for the blog.
• TPMLiveWire - is a spin-off established in September 2009.
• TPMIdea Lab - is a blog established in January 2011 to cover science and technology.
• TPMPollTracker - is an aggregator of various polls about incumbents taken by polling agencies.
• TPMPrime - is a paid members-only section offering long form articles, and interactive discussions with journalists and political figures.{{cite web |url=http://prime.talkingpointsmemo.com/about.php |title=TPMPrime |publisher=TPMPrime |access-date=2012-10-08 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

The four blogs (Talking Points Memo, TPMCafe, TPMMuckraker, and TPMDC) are published by TPM Media LLC.{{cite web |url=http://tpmmuckraker.com/about.php |title=TPMmuckraker |publisher=TPMmuckraker |access-date=2010-08-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080122130830/http://tpmmuckraker.com/about.php |archive-date=2008-01-22 |url-status=dead }}

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Category:American political blogs

Category:Online magazines published in the United States

Category:Internet properties established in 2000

Category:Opinion polling in the United States

Category:Liberalism in the United States