If you still aren't convinced that bloggers can be real journalists... for the first time ever, a blogger has been honored with the George Polk Award for Political Reporting.
Joshua M. Marshall is editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo (his blog) and he reported on the politics behind a number of US attorneys losing their jobs.
Will Bunch of AlterNet weighs in on this breakthrough in very articulate fashion:
"It would have seemed incredible a couple of years ago, but a George Polk Award was given to a blogger this year.
Not just any blogger, of course. Josh Marshall (top, with his son Sam) of Talking Points Memo may have started back in 2000 as a kind of blogging stereotype, posting late at night from his small D.C. apartment and from the corner Starbucks and -- in just two years -- shining a light on the remarks that cost Sen. Trent Lott his GOP Senate leadership post, but he's turned his operation into much, much more.
Since 2002 Marshall has moved to New York and -- thanks to increasing ad revenue -- made Talking Points Memo into a new kind of journalistic enterprise for the 21st Century, hiring a staff of a half dozen talented young journalists and rewriting the rules with a mix of commentary and original muckraking while highlighting the work of other to focus like a laser on the big political questions.
Here's how and why Marshall and Talking Points Memo won a Polk Award:
'His site, www.talkingpointsmemo.com, led the news media coverage of the politically motivated dismissals of United States attorneys across the country. Noting a similarity between firings in Arkansas and California, Marshall (with staff reporter-bloggers Paul Kiel and Justin Rood) connected the dots and found a pattern of federal prosecutors being forced from office for failing to do the Bush Administration's bidding.' "
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