Talking Points Memo

Given everything that's going on in Israel and Palestine, you'd be forgiven for missing other news items. In particular, you may have missed that the Washington Post will cut about 240 employees. According to the Washington Post itself, 700 of the company's 2,500 employees received buyout offers. 
 

There's a specific quote in that piece from interim CEO Patty Stonesifer that is worth noting: 

"We knew we'd lose some folks with Trump, but … we thought we'd be able to hold onto them, that the quality of the work we were doing in other areas would hold them. It didn't hold."

What Stonesifer is referring to is an industry-wide trend in which the journalism business was booming in the Trump years, then Biden got elected and a lot of people sort of checked out of political news for various reasons. It's not unique to the Washington Post. In fact, many are surprised to hear that through June 1st, the calendar year 2023 saw the most journalism job losses ever.

So what does this have to do with TPM? Well first of all, it's a plea to support journalism you find valuable and important—any journalism whether it's The Washington Post or NPR or The Defector.
 

Second, it's an ask to support TPM directly. There was another story that you easily may have missed—federal prosecutors charged George Santos in a superseding indictment with credit card fraud and identity theft in a "scheme" that essentially bilked money from his own supporters. These charges are on top of other charges the feds brought against the lying congressman back in May.

But here's the thing: Our Hunter Walker and Josh Kovensky broke this story in January. No they didn't break the charges, they figured out what Santos was doing with the donations and wrote a story walking readers through it. Nine months later, the federal charges mirror TPM's reporting. As the boss around here wrote in the Editors' Blog, that's what memberships pay for: Journalism.

Times are tough for the journalism industry. That won't change anytime soon. So we hope you'll support good work—especially ours.

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