'Talking Points Memo' profiled

Last week Joshua Micah Marshall wins journalism's George Polk Award. This week the New York Times feigns surprise that he doesn't blog in his pajamas and has an office.

To scores of bloggers, it was a case of local boy makes good. Many took it as vindication of their enterprise — that anyone can assume the mantle of reporting on the pressing issues affecting the nation and the world, with the imprimatur of a mainstream media outlet or not. And most reassuringly, it showed that fair numbers of people out there were paying attention.

Mr. Marshall was recognized for a style of online reporting that greatly expands the definition of blogging. And he operates a long way from the clichéd pajama-wearing, coffee-sipping commentator on the news. He has a newsroom in Manhattan and seven reporters for his sites, including two in Washington.

Yet Mr. Marshall does not shy away from the notion of blogging. “I think of us as journalists; the medium we work in is blogging,” he said, something that can involve matters as varied as the tone of the writing or the display of articles in reverse chronological order. “We have kind of broken free of the model of discrete articles that have a beginning and end. Instead, there are an ongoing series of dispatches.”

Yes, there have been more than the usual number of posts recently about blogs and bloggers. These things are cyclical. Blogs as a medium are interesting and newsworthy right now. Next month I may be posting a lot about traffic or history, who knows.

Photo: Andrea Mohin / The New York Times