For the first class assignment, I chose to review a blog which I have never heard of before: Talking Points Memo (TPM). I discovered this blog after Googling “top news blogs”. From this search, I learned that TPM was ranked #7 on The Guardian’s list of “The world’s 50 most powerful blogs”.
Talking Points Memo is a political online-based news site, equipt with editors, reporter-bloggers, etc. Their small staff is listed on the main page. It is a liberal blog, and has the tagline “Commentary on political events from a politically left perspective, by Joshua Micah Marshall.” Therefore, the main audience would be online users who are left-wing and very interested in politics. I like this blog because it is neat, has a good amount of pictures (without which it might be text heavy and lose readers), and is well organized. I must admit that at first glance, the blog may be confusing. The editor’s blog posts are featured in the left hand column, while the regular news stories are posted in the middle and right hand columns. Any new visitor (who is impatient) to TPM might not make this distinction.
Layout designers at TPM seem to want to use their space for as much news content as possible, since the title is abbreviated to TPM and most headlines are on the smaller side.
Unsurprisingly, the topic dominating the news posts on TPM are about the Health Care Reform bill. From what I see, TPM uses its own reporter-bloggers to get the information for stories. In the article Waiting Game: The Dems Play For Time, other TPM articles are linked. It is clear that there was reporting done by TPM reporters specifically for this story because of the quotes from the aide. The article Joe Biden Tells Democrats To ‘Keep The Faith’ And Says 60 Seats Wasn’t Really A ‘Blessing’ is made up almost entirely of quotes, making this less like a blog post and more like a recap of a speech. Both articles have perfect spelling and grammar. TPM does not link to other journalists’ work, except in the TPM Approved Sites section.
On a side note, TPM includes advertisements on the front page, along with on the pages of articles. Walmart and H&R Block are among the advertisers. They can be a tad distracting, however, the advertisments are kept on the sides (almost framing the page) for the most part, which I appreciated.
