Josh Marshall MA'93 PhD'03, editor and publisher of the blog Talking Points Memo, recently received the 2007 George Polk Award for Legal Reporting for his leading coverage of the firings of several U.S. attorneys last year.
"Marshall's tenacious investigative reporting sparked interest by the traditional news media and led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales," the Polk Committee said in a press release. His work "connected the dots and found a pattern of federal prosecutors being forced from office for failing to do the Bush administration's bidding," the committee said.
TPM, which can be found online at talkingpointsmemo.com, is the first blog to win the prestigious award. TPM integrates readers' tips with both local and national reports as well as first-hand investigative coverage, operating as a small professional newsroom with seven full-time reporters on staff in New York City and Washington, according to the site.
The site gained popularity with coverage of political scandals and grew to include ads in 2003, which brought in enough money to support Marshall and his staff, according to a Feb. 25 article in the New York Times.
Professor of Political Science Darrell West said he sees the award as the established media's recognition of blogging as a serious form of journalism. "Blogging has really taken off this year," he said, noting the crucial role the Internet and sites like Marshall's will play in the 2008 election.
The site has an average of 400,000 page views every day and 750,000 unique visitors each month, according to the Times article.
Marshall said he feels that the operation should not get much larger. He said he wants to "keep doing what we're doing for as long as possible." His future plans also include writing books, he added.
In the same week that the Polk award was announced, the Justice Department also put Marshall back on the list of reporters with credentials. TPM Muckraker, the site's primary investigative arm, had been removed the previous year in a move Marshall called petty.
"They kicked us off and we did a number of things to try to get it reversed and were successful," Marshall said. He said that though TPM deals with loaded material, the site does not often experience that sort of backlash.
"Most people are grown-up enough to deal with things differently," he said.
Marshall spoke highly of the time he spent at the University. "I loved Brown and I loved Providence," he said. "That's where I really learned to write." He cited several professors of history as his mentors - Professor of History Gordon Wood, Associate Professor of History Doug Cope and the late Professor of History John Thomas PhD '61.
Wood said he was not surprised that Marshall won the Polk award.
"He is a great writer," he said. He added Marshall wrote a "first-class dissertation" on Indians and slavery in the 17th century.
Marshall said he knew early on that he would rather be an opinions journalist rather than an academic one. He founded TPM "as a sideline project" covering the Florida recount in 2000 while he was writing for The American Prospect and freelancing. Shortly thereafter, running TPM became his full-time pursuit.
Created in 1949 in memory of the CBS correspondent, the George Polk Awards are among the most respected honors for journalism in the nation. Polk died in Greece while reporting on the country's civil war in 1948, according to the awards' Web site.
Marshall, who attended Princeton as an undergrad, currently lives in New York City with his family.
