From the moment that breaking news on politics, culture and foreign affairs leaves Capitol Hill, celebrity blogger Joshua Marshall '91 filters through the virtual press for leads and links to share with his legions of devoted readers.
Marshall's website, Talkingpointsmemo.com, has gained in prominence — especially in left-leaning circles — since its launch five years ago, and has sent him down a career path he never anticipated.
"I never expected it to be the major way I make my living, or what people know me for," he said.
As a history major at Princeton, Marshall thought his future resided in academia. He completed a doctoral program in American History at Brown, but found that his true interests involved a more active role in history and politics.
"I got to the point where the cloistered nature of academic life ... wasn't for me," Marshall said. "When you're an historian you're supposed to be descriptive, not prescriptive. I wanted to influence more of the direction of politics today."
He decided to pursue a career in journalism and took a position writing for American Prospect, a magazine in Boston. Later, his interest in politics led him to the publication's Washington Bureau office. Soon, he was blogging.
"It was a way for me to have an outlet where I could have ideological independence from editors," he said.
Though Marshall still works as a freelance writer and contributes to publications like The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs and The New Yorker, Talkingpointsmemo.com is now Marshall's primary focus. The popularity of the site has increased site advertising, allowing him to spend more of his working time blogging.
"Originally I didn't make any money from blogging," he said. "Then over time I was able to do less and less freelance writing and devoted more and more time to the blog."
Marshall's main blog has been in existence for about five years.
Recently, readers' demand for a discussion forum led to the development of the spin-off site TPMCafe.com, which focuses on a public discussion of American political and cultural issues. "I wanted a way to give attention to other topics," he said.
The TPMCafe site has a special connection to the University: both Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80 and Wilson School Professor John Ikenberry contribute to the political discussion on the site in public forum blogs.
"The new generation gets their news in new ways," Slaughter told The Daily Princetonian in May. "By appearing on TPMCafe.com, there is a fair chance Princeton students will read me."
Marshall said he is pleased with the success of Princeton faculty blogging on the site. "We launched it about four months ago and we quickly developed a core audience," he said.
Though always interested in history and politics, Marshall "wasn't as political and wasn't as liberal" as a student at Princeton as he is now, he said.
Last spring, Marshall publicized the Frist Filibuster protest while it was in its early stages.
The protest, which began outside the Frist Campus Center and eventually moved to Washington, D.C., received national attention for its critique of the "nuclear option" supported by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist '74 that would have prevented Democrats from blocking President Bush's court nominees with filibusters.
The protest gained even greater fame as the Protest of the Year in Mother Jones Magazine, a publication for social and political issues.
Though Marshall acknowledges that his coverage of the protest may have helped it get media attention initially, he attributes its success to the organizers' original idea. "It was a really clever concept ... just very clever political theater," he said.
While Marshall now spends much of his professional career focusing on blogging rather than more conventional forms of journalism, he still feels strongly that there is a place for traditional media outlets in the future of journalism.
Marshall stressed the importance of traditional media sources, especially newspapers, to the existence of online blogs. "[Blogs] are completely dependent on mainstream media," he said. "They need something to react to."
"I think what blogs have done is open up ... the discussion of national politics and have democratized coverage of politics in this country," Marshall added.
Marshall's blogs that generally receive the most attention are those in which he does his own reporting.
"For me, it's really no different than conventional journalism ... it's the same set of skills, the same sources," he said. "Now I just have more freedom about what I focus on."
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