If you’re a podcast listener, I want you to check out The TPM Social Club, our second podcast which is hosted by reporter Josh Kovensky and publisher Joe Ragazzo. I particularly hope you check out the latest episode where Josh and Joe interview TPM’s Capitol Hill reporter Emine Yücel. They talk about covering Capitol Hill for TPM, being an international competition-level fencer and also her background as an immigrant from Turkey and reporting on Capitol Hill politics through the prism of a Turkish background and upbringing.
What they talk about is interesting in itself. But I think you’ll also find it interesting as a TPM Reader because you see the organization sort of from the side, as it were, in this pod. You hear a lot from me at TPM in the Editors’ Blog. You hear from me again in our flagship podcast along with Kate Riga. You get some feel for who Kate and I are, our ideas, how we express things in conversation. You get some of that from David Kurtz too. But while you see the rest of the editorial team’s writing, that’s not really the same thing. You know the names, but not much about their backgrounds and them as people.
You get some of that in this episode with all three of them. The pod in general isn’t about politics in the way The TPM Show with Josh and Kate is. Politics is part of it, but it’s far less tied to the politics and news of the moment and some stuff that isn’t politics at all. It’s kind of about everything we’re interested in, or Josh and Joe are, and like everyone else there’s a lot more that we’re interested in besides politics. The particular dynamic of this episode was interesting to me because each of the three is from a different part of the organization. As our Capitol Hill reporter, Emine is right on top of the politics news of the moment, and having to translate TPMness, what we’re interested in and what we’re not, right there on the front lines. Josh covers politics news too. But the investigative beat is different, in subject matter and pace. Joe is the publisher, which means he’s in charge of running the business side of the operation. I found that part of this episode really interesting.
I enjoyed listening to it for my own reasons, seeing an angle on the organization I founded and still oversee but that has its own organic internal life, its own internal culture that has a life entirely on its own. If you’re a founder, there’s a way that it’s very natural to see the thing as kind of an extension of yourself. But if you’re successful, it becomes much more than that, a lot of it and if possible its center of gravity exists entirely independent of you. If you’re a TPM Reader, I think you’ll really enjoy it.
You can find it — TPM Social Club — on all the podcast platforms. But you can also see the video version here or just watch below. You might find the video version more interesting since if you’re getting a sense of members of the TPM staff, it’s interesting to actually see them.
