Josh Marshall

Joshua Micah Marshall (born February 15, 1969 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American Polk Award-winningcite news | url=http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003712141 | publisher=Editor & Publisher | title=Slain Editor Bailey Among George Polk Award Winners | last=Strupp | first=Joe | authorlink=Joe Strupp | date=February 19, 2008 | accessdate=2008-02-19] journalist [cite news | url=http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0502/18/ip.01.html | publisher=CNN: Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics | title=Rehnquist's Health; Do Bloggers Matter?; RNC Chair Pushes Bush Social Security Plans | last=Kurtz | first=Howard | authorlink=Howard Kurtz | date=February 18, 2005 | accessdate=2007-09-09] who founded "Talking Points Memo", which "The New York Times Magazine" called "one of the most popular and most respected sites" in the blogosphere.cite news | url=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/magazine/26BLOGS.html | publisher=The New York Times Magazine | title=Fear and Laptops on the Campaign Trail | last=Klam | first=Matthew | date=September 26, 2004 | accessdate=2007-05-18] He currently presides over a network of sites that operate under the "TPM Media" banner and average 400,000 page views every weekdaycite news | url=http://www.cjr.org/feature/the_josh_marshall_plan.php | publisher=Columbia Journalism Review | title=The (Josh) Marshall Plan | last=Glenn | first=David | date=September/October 2007 | accessdate=2007-09-08 ] and 750,000 unique visitors every month.cite news | url=http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/may/june-2007/is-this-thing-on.html | publisher=Brown Alumni Magazine | title=Is This Thing On? | last=Bunch | first=William | date=May/June, 2007 | accessdate=2008-02-19] Marshall and his work have been profiled by "The New York Times",cite news | url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/business/media/25marshall.html | publisher=The New York Times | date=February 25, 2008 | title=Blogger, Sans Pajamas, Rakes Muck and a Prize | last=Cohen | first=Noam | authorlink=Noam Cohen | accessdate=2008-02-25] the "Los Angeles Times",cite news | url=http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-blogs17mar17,0,4018765,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines | publisher=Los Angeles Times | title=Blogs can top the presses | last=McDermott | first=Terry | date=March 17, 2007, accessdate=2007-05-18] the "Financial Times",cite news | url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d59b8d8-3ca7-11dc-b067-0000779fd2ac.html | publisher=Financial Times | title=Quick off the blog | last=Apple | first=Sam | date=July 28, 2007 | accessdate=2007-09-08] "National Public Radio", [cite news | url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083501 | publisher=National Public Radio | title=Talking Points Site Kept Attorneys Story Alive | last=Smith | first=Robert | date=March 22, 2007, accessdate=2007-05-18] "The New York Times Magazine", [cite news | url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/11ideas_section3-3.html | publisher=The New York Times Magazine | title=Open-Source Reporting | last=Starr | first=Alexandra | date=December 11, 2005 | accessdate=2007-05-18] the "Columbia Journalism Review", "Bill Moyers Journal", [cite news | url=http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/profile2.html | publisher=PBS | title=Blogging for Truth | last=Moyers | first=Bill | authorlink=Bill Moyers | date=April 27, 2007, accessdate=2007-05-18] and "GQ". [cite news | url=http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_6197 | publisher=GQ | date=December, 2007 | title=Men of the Year 2007 | last=Flynn | first=Sean | accessdate=2008-02-20] cite news | url=http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_6203 | publisher=GQ | date=December, 2007 | title=MOTY:Give This Man a Pulitzer | last=Flynn | first=Sean | accessdate=2008-02-20] 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."

Early career

Marshall is a graduate of the Webb Schools 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.

Talking Points Memo

Reaching a critical mass

Inspired by political bloggers such as Mickey Kaus 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" in early 2001 and continued to blog while also 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.

Launching TPM Media

In 2005, Marshall launched "TPMCafe". [cite news | url=http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0505/10/ip.01.html | publisher=CNN: Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics | title=Political Fundraising Trial Gets Underway; Senate Problems with Judicial Nominees Continue | last=Tatton | first=Abbi | authorlink=Abbi Tatton | date=May 10, 2005 | accessdate=2007-05-18] 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 dumps by governmental entities engaging in cover-ups. [cite news | url=http://www.nysun.com/article/50895 | publisher=The New York Sun | title=New Technique Lets Bloggers Tackle Late-Night News Dumps | first=Josh | last=Gerstein | date=March 21, 2007 | accessdate=2007-06-15]

"TPM Media" operates out of an office in Manhattan and currently employs seven reporters, including two in Washington.

U.S. Attorney Scandal

In 2007, Marshall was instrumental in exposing another national scandal, the politically-motivated dismissal of U.S. attorneys 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, [cite news | url=http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/how_talkingpointsmemo_beat_the.php | publisher=Columbia Journalism Review | title=How TalkingPointsMemo Beat the Big Boys on the U.S. Attorney Story | last=McLeary | first=Paul | date=March 15, 2007 | accessdate=2007-09-09] 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." [cite news | url=http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/01/running_massacre.html | publisher=Time magazine | title=Running Massacre? | last=Carney | first=Jay | date=January 17, 2007 | accessdate=2007-09-09] 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." [cite news | url=http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/03/where_credit_is_due.html | publisher=Time magazine | title=Where Credit Is Due | last=Carney | first=Jay | authorlink=Jay Carney | date=March 13, 2007 | accessdate=2007-09-09]

For doggedly pursuing the story, Arianna Huffington nominated Joshua Marshall and the "Talking Points Memo" team to the Time 100. [cite news | url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1615198,00.html | publisher=Time magazine | title=The TIME 100 | author=Arianna Huffington | date=April 26, 2007 | accessdate=2007-05-18]

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 Hill".

Family

Joshua Marshall's father was a professor of marine biology. His mother died when he was still young.

Marshall married Millet Israeli in March 2005, and the couple lives in New York City with their two young sons and a dog named Simon.cite web | url=http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/bio.php | publisher=Talking Points Memo | title=Talking Points Memo by Joshua Micah Marshall | accessdate=2007-09-08]

Prizes & Honors

* George Polk Award for Legal Reporting, 2007
* "The Week" Opinion Awards, Blogger of the Year, 2003 & 2007
* "GQ" Men of the Year, Muckraker, 2007

References

External links

* [http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ "Talking Points Memo"]
** [http://talkingpointsmemo.com/joshmarshall.php Marshall's biography] at "Talking Points Memo".