Josh Marshall | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Marshall in 2010 | |
| Born | (1969-02-15)February 15, 1969 (age 57) |
| Education | Princeton University (BA) Brown University (MA,PhD) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Spouse | Millet Israeli |
Joshua Micah Jesajan-Dorja Marshall[1] (born February 15, 1969) is an American journalist and blogger[2] who foundedTalking Points Memo.[3] Aliberal, he presides over a network ofprogressive-oriented sites that operate under theTPM Media banner. In 2008, they averaged 400,000 page views on weekdays[4] and 750,000 unique visitors per month.[5][6]
Marshall and his work have been profiled byThe New York Times,[5] theLos Angeles Times,[7] theFinancial Times,[8]National Public Radio,[9]The New York Times Magazine,[10] theColumbia Journalism Review,[4]Bill Moyers Journal,[11] andGQ.[12][13] In 2007,Hendrik Hertzberg, a senior editor atThe New Yorker, compared Marshall to the influential founders ofTime magazine, saying: "Marshall is in the line of the great light-bulb-over-the-head editors. He's likeBriton Hadden orHenry Luce. He's created something new."[4]
Marshall was born inSt. Louis, Missouri.[4][8] Marshall's father was a professor of marine biology. His mother died when he was young.[14]
He is a graduate ofthe Webb Schools of California andPrinceton University and earned aPhD in American history fromBrown University.[4][8] 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 asLawrence Lessig.[4]
Marshall began writing freelance articles about Internet free speech forThe American Prospect in 1997 and was soon hired as an associate editor.[4] He worked for theProspect for three years[14] and in 1999 moved toD.C. to become their Washington editor.[4]He often clashed with the top editors at theProspect, over both ideology and the direction of the website.[4]
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Inspired by political bloggers such asMickey Kaus andAndrew Sullivan, Marshall startedTalking Points Memo during the 2000Florida election recount. "I really liked what seemed to me to be the freedom of expression of this genre of writing," Marshall told theColumbia Journalism Review. "And, obviously, given the issues that I had with theProspect, that appealed to me a lot."[4]
He left his job at theProspect early in 2001[4] and continued to blog while writing forThe Washington Monthly,The Atlantic,The New Yorker,[14]Salon.com, and theNew York Post.[4] In 2002, Marshall usedTalking Points Memo to report onTrent Lott'scontroversial comments praisingStrom Thurmond's 1948 presidential run as asegregationist.[7] According toHarvard Kennedy School, Marshall was instrumental in fueling the ensuing scandal that eventually led to Trent Lott's resignation asSenate Minority Leader.[14]
As a result of the Lott story, traffic toTalking Points Memo spiked from 8,000 to 20,000page views a day.[4] In the fall of 2003, as people focused on the failure to findWMD's inIraq, 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."[5] Marshall started selling ads on his site and by the end of 2004 was earning $10,000 a month,[4] making him one of a handful of whatThe New York Times Magazine dubbed "elite bloggers" who earned enough money to make blogging a full-time occupation.[14]
During the 2008 US election campaign, many independent news sites and political blogs saw a wave of "explosive growth".[15]Talking Points Memo experienced the largest surge in traffic,[16] growing from 32,000unique visitors in September 2007 to 458,000 unique visitors in September 2008,[17] a 1,321% year-to-year increase in the size of its audience.[18]
In 2005, Marshall launchedTPMCafe.[19] 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, launchingTPMmuckraker. The site focuses on political corruption, and was originally staffed byPaul Kiel andJustin Rood. Rood has since moved on toABC and its blogThe Blotter. Kiel has recently been joined by two new staff reporter-bloggers,Laura McGann andSpencer Ackerman.TPMmuckraker has attempted to organize its readers to plow through and readdocument dumps by governmental entities engaging incover-ups.[20]
TPM Media operates out of an office in Manhattan and currently employs seven reporters, including two inWashington.[5]
| 2006 dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy |
In 2007, Marshall was instrumental in exposing another national controversy — the politically motivateddismissal of U.S. attorneys by theBush administration.[3] Marshall wonThe 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."[3]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."[4] The ensuing scandal resulted in the resignations of several high-level government officials;[7][8] 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 ofAttorney GeneralAlberto Gonzales."[5]
After a weekend writer noticed that theU.S. attorney for the Eastern District ofArkansas was being replaced with a former adviser toKarl Rove,[21] Marshall discovered that U.S. AttorneyCarol Lam was also being asked to resign. Lam had successfully prosecutedRepublicanCaliforniaRepresentativeDuke Cunningham on bribery charges and was amid a criminal investigation into a congressional scandal of historic proportions.[8] "I was stunned by it," Marshall told theFinancial Times. "Normally, in a case like that, the prosecutor would be untouchable."[8]
National newspapers were slow to pick up the story.[8]Time magazine's Washington bureau chiefJay Carney accused Marshall of "seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely exist."[22] By the timeThe 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.[8]
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."[23]
For doggedly pursuing the story,Arianna Huffington nominated Joshua Marshall and theTalking Points Memo team to theTime 100.[24]
Marshall married Millet Israeli in March 2005,[25] and the couple live in New York City with their sons Sam and Daniel.[26]
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