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 Main page ofTalking Points Memo as of August 2010 | |
Type of site | Politicalblog, news, discussion forum |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Josh Marshall |
| Created by | Josh Marshall |
| Editor | Josh Marshall |
| URL | talkingpointsmemo.com |
| Commercial | Subscription and advertising supported |
| Registration | For discussion forum |
| Launched | November 12, 2000; 25 years ago (2000-11-12) |
| Current status | Active |
Talking Points Memo (TPM) is a liberal political news and commentary website that started as ablog created and run byJosh Marshall. It debuted on November 12, 2000. The name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to a "talking points memo" that was often discussed during theClinton-era Monica Lewinsky scandal.[1]TPM became one of the first online-only political news websites to launch a membership program in 2012. In 2020, the site had 35,000 members.[2]
TPM was founded as a political blog in 2000 by Marshall, who until 2004 was the site's sole employee.[3] In 2005, he incorporated TPM Media LLC,[3] and the company began to grow.[4]
In the mid-2000s, the company launched a series of projects under the TPM umbrella. A spin-off blog,TPMCafe, debuted on May 31, 2005. This site featured a collection of blogs about a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues written by academics, journalists, and former public officials, among others. Guest bloggers included politicians, such as then-senatorsSherrod Brown,Bernie Sanders andJohn Kerry and at-the-time future senatorElizabeth Warren; journalists, includingEzra Klein,Dahlia Lithwick,Paul Krugman,George Packer, Ed Kilgore,Glenn Greenwald,Jonathan Chait,Peter Beinart,Emily Bazelon,Matthew Yglesias, andMichael Crowley; activistAaron Swartz; policy experts, includingRobert Reich andDean Baker; and novelistsAnne Lamott andJonathan Franzen.[5][6]TPMCafe has been described as a "social gathering place for readers to share news and opinion," and a precursor to social media.[7]
TPMmuckracker expanded on Marshall’s work, with journalists working for theTPM collective, such as Paul Kiel and Justin Rood, investigating political corruption.TPMDC, founded in January 2007, was staffed by Washington-based journalists and covered politics from the capital. TPM Media also acquired fromThe American Prospect "The Horse's Mouth," a blog by Greg Sargent about how major news outlets covered Washington politics. Beginning in the summer of 2006, many weekend postings were provided byanonymous blogger DK. On November 11, 2006, DK was revealed to be attorney David Kurtz, who went on to serve as an editor for the site.
By 2007,TPM received an average of 400,000 page views every weekday.[8]
DuringGeorge W. Bush’s presidency,TPM closely covered the administration’s effort to privatizeSocial Security. The site also distinguished itself in 2006 for breaking a series of stories related to theU.S. Attorneys scandal.[9][10][11] In 2007,TPM won aGeorge Polk Award for legal reporting for its coverage, becoming the first online-only outlet to receive the award.[12] In 2009,TPM opened a Washington, D.C. office and joined theWhite House press pool to cover theObama administration, along with several other progressive news outlets.[4][13]
In 2019,TPM was among the first outlets to uncoverPresident Donald Trump’spressure campaign onUkrainian presidentVolodomyr Zelensky.[14] In 2021,TPM was the first outlet to note that Trump had removed the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia,BJay Pak, as part of his effort to substantiate false claims of voter fraud.[15][16]
In 2023,TPM was the first outlet to report thatCongressman George Santos had made charges on donors' credit cards without their permission.[17] Santos later plead guilty to charges that he had done so.[18]
TPM is noted for its coverage of the political fringe, including militias, white nationalists, conspiracy theorists and similar groups, stating that it considers them to be “greater drivers of American politics than mainstream news coverage allows.”[19][20][21] In 2015,TPM was early to identify Trump as a serious contender in the Republican presidential primary.[22]
After relying on advertising for its first decade of existence,TPM introduced a subscription service, TPM Prime, in 2012. Between 2016 and 2017, the site’s membership doubled.[23] In 2020, the site had 35,000 members.[2] By 2025,TPM was almost entirely member-supported, drawing more than 90 percent of its revenue from members.[20] The site offers free memberships for students and those who cannot afford to pay.[24]
TPM’s staff unionized withWriters Guild of America, East in 2018.[25] In 2025,TPM had 18 employees, with teams of reporters in New York and D.C. Marshall serves as editor in chief.[20]
HistorianRick Perlstein in 2024 praisedTPM’s coverage of conservative activists, comparing it favorably to that of theNew York Times. “If you are interested in how the American right went insane, TalkingPointsMemo.com is your actual publication of record, compiling a bountiful archive of the ways ‘extremism’ and ‘mainstream’ merged in the history of the Republican Party from the dawn of President George W. Bush to the present,” he wrote. “It was born, in 2000, at a time of new vessels and styles of writing about American politics.”[19]
EditorBen Smith in 2012 approvingly described Marshall's investment in original reporting during a time when other digital media outlets were leaning heavily on aggregation. “I think that the investment in original reporting is something he chose to do pretty early when a lot of other people were thinking aggregation was the future,” he said.[26]
Robert W. McChesney andJohn Nichols describe the site as taking a "more raucous and sensational" tone than traditional news media. This includes coining phrases such as "Bamboozlepalooza" to describeGeorge W. Bush's efforts toprivatize Social Security, which the blog opposed;[27] and "bitch-slap politics" to refer to theSwiftboating of 2004 presidential candidateJohn Kerry.[28]
McChesney and Nichols compare the site's style to themuckraking ofUpton Sinclair. The more social aspects of the site, which invitecrowdsourcing, were compared toLa Follette's Weekly.[27]Tom Rosenstiel, director of theProject for Excellence in Journalism, in 2009 said "TPM is really an advocacy operation that has moved toward journalism."[4]