John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists

2008 Knight Lecture: Josh Marshall

Josh Marshall Poster

    Talking Points Memo founder to give Knight Lecture

    7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 28
    Jordan Hall Lecture Hall 041
    Free to the public

    Josh Marshall, founder of the influential blog Talking Points Memo, will give the 20th annual Knight Lecture at Stanford later this month.

    In the seven years since Marshall created the blog, during the 2000 election Florida recount, it has grown into a major enterprise, including TPMMuckraker, TPM Election Central, and TPMCafé. Its coverage has often been ahead of mainstream news media, which was recognized this year when Marshall became the first blogger to win a George Polk award. The award was given for his coverage of the politically motivated dismissals of United States attorneys across the country, which ultimately led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

    The title of his talk is "New Frontier: Journalism's Opportunity in Web 2.0." The talk will be given at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 28, in Jordan Hall Lecture Hall 041. It is free and open to the public. The lecture is sponsored by the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists.

    Although most U.S. news organizations have added blogs to their websites, the question of whether independently operated blogs such as TPM should be considered journalistic organizations continues to be a subject of debate in some journalism circles.

    Marshall considers his reporters to be journalists, just working in a new medium. "We have kind of broken free of the model of discrete articles that have a beginning and end. Instead, there are an ongoing series of dispatches," he told the New York Times. Talking Points Memo has a newsroom in Manhattan, with a staff of eight, including one in Washington.

    Marshall is publisher of all the Talking Points Memo websites, and also writes a weekly column for the Capitol Hill newspaper, The Hill. His articles have appeared in many U.S. and international publications, including The American Prospect, The Atlantic Monthly, The Boston Globe, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Post, The New York Times, Salon and Slate.

    In addition to the Polk Award, he also received a Sidney Hillman award in 2006 for reporting on President Bush's attempt to phase out Social Security.

    Marshall graduated from Princeton in 1991 and holds a doctorate in American history from Brown.

    The Knight Fellowships program brings outstanding mid-career journalists, 12 from the U.S. and eight from other countries, to study at Stanford for an academic year. It has sponsored an annual lecture since 1988.

    James Bettinger, professor (teaching) of communication, is director of the Knight Fellowships, and Dawn Garcia is deputy director.

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