This is a special day for TPM, a bittersweet one, but also a happy one in as much as we’re sending off someone who’s contributed so much to what this network of sites has become over the last two and a half years.
Today is Paul Kiel’s last day at TPM. He’s been snatched away by the good folks at Pro Publica, a new news organization that’s just starting up that employs yet another new model for producing vibrant and path-breaking journalism in an era in which the web and collapsing journalistic business models have the entire journalism world under threat.
For TPM regulars Paul doesn’t need any introduction. Paul was TPM’s second hire, one of two blogger-reporters I hired with the funds raised to start TPMmuckraker.com. In fact, Paul came on board a couple months before TPMmuckraker actually launched. He was later joined by Justin Rood as the site’s original two reporters.
TPM got a great deal of attention and praise for our coverage of the US Attorney firing scandal last year. And as the face of TPM, a lot of those kind words have focused on me. But it was really more a collaboration between Paul and I. Justin Rood left in January of last year, just as the story was getting underway. And in part because Paul and I had our hands so full throwing everything we had at that story, we didn’t get around to hiring a replacement muckraker until late spring when the bulk of the story — at least the biggest headlines — were already behind us. I really can’t thank him enough for his work on that story.
It’s sort of in the nature of a small, scrappy organization that you hire people and if you’re lucky get to watch them come into their own on your team. It’s one of the most satisfying aspects of running this operation. And I’m hoping that over the coming years we’ll be able to find other great talent like Paul, have them contribute mightily to what we do here, shape what it is we do, and then when the time comes have them go off to other outfits hopefully taking some small bit of what they’ve learned working here with them.
In the next few days we’ll be announcing new hires who will make up the new TPMmuckraker team. And I’m confident they’ll take the site in exciting new directions applying our model to the copious amounts of new muck that’s out there waiting to be raked. But like anything truly special, Paul can’t really be replaced. And we will miss him.
Late Update: A reader-blogger at TPMCafe has set up a thread to send Paul best wishes and, I suppose, also reminisce about your favorite Paul Kiel moments or Kieliana.
