Talking Points Memo

TPM had an exclusive earlier this week: The University of Michigan will stop providing gender-affirming care for minors as it comes under legal pressure from the Trump administration. You can read it here. It's a great scoop about an important subject from two great reporters, Kate Riga and Josh Kovensky.

In my experiences, journalists and people who work in journalism have something of a blindspot when it comes to the general public's understanding of different sorts of news products. Even "news products" is kind of jargony. What is opinion and what is news, and in which of those buckets does "analysis" fall? Is an editorial board part of the editorial team? (It's usually not.) Do bloggers just live in their parents' basement? (Sometimes, but that is nothing to be ashamed of anyway!)

Talking Points Memo has original reporting, we have analysis and we have Josh Marshall, who eschews categorization almost as a point of personal pride. But all of our journalism adheres to a basic philosophy: We want our readers to know as much as we do. When we know facts, we report facts. When we can connect a series of facts and draw an implicit or explicit conclusion from those facts (analysis) we provide that analysis. When we have ideas about how things should work or could work and we think those are good ideas, we share those ideas (commentary). When we think something is interesting, even if we're not sure what it means, we'll tell you about it.

Journalism is often about precision. How can we be as accurate and concise as possible? Sometimes "being accurate" is about transparency with regard to how something is framed. Sometimes the best sorts of stories are those that are asking questions rather than providing answers in an effort to focus the readers' attention on the issues and concerns that are most urgent. Sometimes the best stories are those that say, "pay attention to this thing over here." Precision begets clarity and clarity begets understanding, and helping our audience to better understand the world is our primary objective at all times. We hope you'll support us on this mission. Whether you primarily read something from the site or listen to a podcast or follow us on social media, everything is funded and made possible by our members.