Talking Points Memo

Every year around this time I watch two movies: Jaws and Independence Day. Both feel relevant in different ways today. In Jaws, you have a scientist who arrives at a small town and, while trying to warn about a threat, is stymied by a politician who has his own agenda. Independence Day is about an alien invasion and features one of the all time great movie speeches delivered by President Thomas J. Whitmore (played by Bill Pullman), which, despite my best efforts, still gets me every time. Especially the ending.
 

"We will not go quietly into the night!

We will not vanish without a fight!

We're going to live on!

We're going to survive!"
 

Is it corny? Yeah, of course it is. It's 10/10 corny. But it still gets me fired up, especially when Pullman says, "We will not go quietly into the night." It's a simple but surprisingly apt rallying cry for a newsroom. On some level, it's the whole purpose of our existence, to ensure that when those in power do bad things, the general public and you, our readers, know about them. It's quite literally our job, our raison d'être, to not go quietly into the night. We're gonna be loud as hell.

As the Trump administration pushes forward with increasingly undemocratic, authoritarian, and frankly, anti-American efforts to suppress speech, redefine citizenship and undo foundational institutions, we have to collectively push back by whatever means are at our disposal. For a news outlet like TPM, that means documenting and contextualizing as much as we possibly can. It's the essence of public service journalism.

Being ashamed of what the regime is currently doing does not preclude one from working tirelessly to change the course we're on. At its absolute finest, journalism doesn't just stand on the sidelines and note things for future generations — it assists those who are fighting for change today. The second sentence of our about page says: We are particularly focused on reporting on abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust. That was the case 25 years ago when Josh was blogging by himself and it's the case now with a team of four editors, six reporters and a Josh Marshall. Journalism is not mere stenography, it's aggressive and often intrinsically confrontational. Because we will not go quietly into the night. And we hope you come with us and support us. We can always get a bigger boat.