Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> Lawbeat

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Legal News

: Lawbeat

Polk goes to TPM blogger Marshall

By Mark Obbie

ADVERTISEMENTS

The prestigious George Polk Award for legal reporting goes this year to a blogger/reporter: Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo, for his site's reporting on the U.S. attorneys scandal. The Polk Awards folks at Long Island University don't seem to have published their press release yet, which I read about in the Times. But TPM posted this quote from what it says is from the award citation:

His site, www.talkingpointsmemo.com, led the news media coverage of the politically motivated dismissals of United States attorneys across the country. Noting a similarity between firings in Arkansas and California, Marshall (with staff reporter-bloggers Paul Kiel and Justin Wood) connected the dots and found a pattern of federal prosecutors being forced from office for failing to do the Bush Administration's bidding.

TPM Muckraker's archive of its coverage can be found in this timeline (let me know if there's a better link to its body of work). The important point I take from this is that mainstream recognition will come to bloggers who actually do their own reporting, rather than just commenting on what others report (er, sorta like what I do here). TPM has a liberal bent, but despite that it won the judges' hearts through its original reporting. Two other Polks have a legal-reporting angle. The Washington Post's Barton Gellman and Jo Becker (who's now at the Times) won in political reporting for their series on VP Cheney's role as architect of White House policies on interrogation tactics and detainee policies (which obviously are intensely legal questions as well as political). And former Polk-legal winner Jerry Mitchell of The Clarion-Ledger won in state reporting for his coverage of Mississippi health policy. Here's an archive of past Polk winners.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on February 19, 2008 (boomark / email).