# Talking Points Memo ***Talking Points Memo*** (TPM) is an independent, membership-funded American political news site founded by [[Josh Marshall]] on **November 12, 2000**, during the Florida recount ([[Bush v. Gore]]). It started as Marshall's personal blog and grew into a newsroom with offices in New York and Washington. It is the outlet behind the [[Authoritarian International]] frame and a recurring source across the vault. ## Business model TPM began as an ad-supported site and launched a paid tier, TPM Prime, in 2012. As of 2025, according to Wikipedia, about **90% of its revenue came from memberships**, it had **35,000+ members** and **18 employees**, and it offered free memberships to students and readers who cannot pay. Its staff unionized with the Writers Guild of America, East in 2018. Members get *The Backchannel*, a daily newsletter. For the vault this model is a contrast case. TPM's revenue depends on readers rather than advertisers or a billionaire owner, which places it on the opposite side of the ownership question the vault tracks through [[Skydance-Paramount]], [[Sinclair Broadcast Group]] and the [[Tech Oligarchy]]. ## Reporting record - **2002:** kept [[Trent Lott]]'s Thurmond remarks in the news until Lott gave up the Senate Republican leadership. - **2006–07:** the U.S. attorney firings, ending with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's resignation. That coverage won the George Polk Award for Legal Reporting, the first for an online-only outlet. - **2015:** took Trump's candidacy seriously early. - **2019:** reporting on Trump's Ukraine pressure campaign. - **2023:** first to report [[George Santos]]'s unauthorized credit-card charges. Spinoffs over the years included TPMCafe (2005), TPMmuckraker (2006) and TPMDC (2007). ## In the vault TPM is cited as a source on: - [[Society for American Civic Renewal]] and [[Charles Haywood]]: internal SACR documents TPM obtained in early 2024 - [[Erick Erickson]]: GOP infighting over SACR - [[Jack Smith]] and [[Eric Schmitt]]: Hunter Walker's reporting on the Schmitt poster board, September 2026 - [[Lewis A. Kaplan]]: NYC ICE detention conditions, September 2026 - [[Alex Acosta]]: the Epstein "belonged to intelligence" account - [[Missouri v. Department of Commerce]]: the voluntarily dismissed census-apportionment suit, September 2026 ## See Also - [[Josh Marshall]] - [[Authoritarian International]]