Talking Points Memo

Here's a peek behind the proverbial TPM curtain. 
 

One of our great struggles is getting Josh to say "membership" instead of "subscription." You may have noticed he uses both interchangeably. Now, I can see how you may think, "honestly, who cares?" And that is a valid question. Ultimately, I'm not sure it matters much in business terms. Hell, it might not matter in any terms. But just in case you are one of the people who has picked up on this intra-TPM tension, here's why we care.
 

There is not one way to do journalism. There is not one way to run a successful media organization. However, we think good journalism involves serving the community and serving a community means forming real relationships with the people within that community. In the days when newspapers had geographic monopolies and there were very few national news outlets, serving the community was fairly straightforward. Everyone lived in generally the same area, had the same local government, attended the same schools, rooted for the same sports teams. 
 

TPM is not a local news outlet, but we still think it's important to get to know our community — our readers and listeners. It's why we'll always have some kind of community forum for our readers to engage with each other. It's why reader emails have always been a key component of the Editors' Blog. It's why we host happy hours that our members can attend for free. It's why in May we're going to be hosting a live podcast in Chicago. It's why in September we'll host yet another live show in another yet-to-be-determined city. It's why we periodically host focus groups, conducted by our own staff, to better understand our members and how we can serve them.
 

A "subscription" is a transactional relationship. Give us the cash, we'll get you the goods. And that's fine, there's nothing wrong with subscriptions. I have many of them. It's just not what we're doing here at TPM. When you join TPM (the preferred phrasing we struggle to get Josh to use with regularity), it's more than a quid pro quo. We want to form real relationships so that we can help you better understand the world. That's what we're passionate about and it's what we enjoy doing. 

So anyway, the membership drive is technically over but here's another crack at joining TPM for 25 percent off. Hope to see you at an event soon. Or maybe just in our inbox. Whatever works.