Hasta La Creative!

Talking Points Memo is the first Internet-only news operation to receive the George Polk Award, an award for Internet reporting given by the Center for Public Integrity.

the TPM newsroom in Manhattan

I like how The New York Times frames the story:

Of the many landmarks along a journalist’s career, two are among those that stand out: winning an award and making the government back down. Last week, Joshua Micah Marshall achieved both.

On Tuesday, it was announced that he had won a George Polk Award for legal reporting for coverage of the firing of eight United States attorneys, critics charged under political circumstances. The “tenacious investigative reporting sparked interest by the traditional news media and led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,” the citation read.

Also last week, the Justice Department put him back on its mailing list for reporters with credentials after removing him last year.

The Times notes that TPM operates a long way from the clichéd pajama-wearing, coffee-sipping commentator on the news. TPM has a newsroom in Manhattan and seven reporters for his sites, including two in Washington.

Dan Kennedy, a media critic who teaches at Northeastern University, has followed the site from its inception. What Talking Points Memo does, he said, “is a different kind of journalism, based on the idea that my readers know more than I do.”