Elana Schor

(Photo illustration by Shereen Hall)

Elana Schor is a reporter-blogger for Talking Points Memo’s new blog TPMDC, where she covers national politics. TPM launched TPMDC earlier this year in an effort to increase the site’s focus on Washington and Capitol Hill in particular. Before starting at TPMDC, Schor worked for Guardian America, the Biloxi Sun-Herald, and Dow Jones Marketwatch. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor’s from Northwestern University. Schor recently sat down with Campus Progress to discuss TPMDC, her fast-paced work schedule, and her experiences as a woman political journalist.

What do you and your colleagues at TPMDC consider yourselves? Are you reporters? Are you bloggers? Or are you reporter-bloggers?

The official title TPM likes to use is reporter-blogger. I don’t really consider myself a beat reporter, at least in the Capitol Hill sense of someone who covers particular issues or particular committees. Basically I cover the whole town, so it’s a matter of whatever we decide is most important and most appropriate for us to talk about on each particular day.

You have worked as a political reporter at a number of outlets. How is this different from working at The Guardian or your previous newspaper or news outlets?

The Guardian is a great news operation—unfortunately their audience, I think, comes to the table largely more interested in Obama-centric coverage and that ends up being the lens with which they view Washington. That’s fine, but what appealed to me about TPM is that it provides an opportunity to cover Obama and also the Hill.

What motivates you to work for TPMDC? Is there something that you find especially interesting or important to write about? What motivates you to do your job?

I believe—hope against hope, really—that there is room for coverage that has a sense of humor and its own voice while being substantive and not insulting to an audience’s intelligence. I prefer to focus on the actual ideas.

What makes TPMDC different from other blogs at TPM or other reporting outlets in general?

It’s certainly new for Josh Marshall and the whole team. It’s really evolving, to be honest. It’s a little bit of Marc Ambinder, it’s a little bit of ThinkProgress. It’s less trying to merge other styles than it is trying to figure out how TPM wants to approach on-the-ground politics stuff so it ends up getting a voice. Eventually that’ll become our culture, if that makes sense.

Are there certain things you’re supposed to cover at TPMDC? A newspaper’s job is to cover certain things in the name of the public’s interest—is that the same at TPMDC?

It’s a little bit of what Josh is interested in and what I’m interested in. So there’s a bit of merging the two of our personal preferences, but we also try to fill in holes in the conversation when we find them. So if there’s a particular angle of the story of the day that’s not getting enough love, like high speed rail was during the stimulus, we sort of just jump in there and try to take it.

TPMDC is constantly publishing blog posts. It must be pretty demanding to write as much as you do. Last week there were days when you published more than 20 posts. What’s your average day like?

Intense. We start at 8:30 and by then I’ve usually read all the major papers cover to cover and as many Beltway pubs as I can, and then just start reporting constantly. A lot of it is retraining your brain to be constantly churning because most journalists think, “Okay, I’m talking to sources and I’m on deadline for X time frame.” I mean where I am now, you’re constantly on deadline and constantly talking to sources and constantly talking to editors so you have to be able to juggle that.

Is this the future of political reporting? Is that what we’re seeing?

If you asked Josh I’m sure he’d say yes. He’s been at this far longer than I have been. I’m just a reporter.

There tends to be fewer women political journalists than male ones. Could you talk a little bit about what it’s like to be a female reporter covering the Hill?

It’s hard. It’s definitely a lot harder for females and I don’t just say that out of a desire to appear feminist. I mean it quite seriously, that being a woman involves hurdling intellectual obstacles with sources—especially as a younger woman. They automatically assume you don’t know what you’re talking about—and I’m never shy about saying when I don’t, but oftentimes I do. If I were a male, and I think older, I would have an easier time connecting with sources. Washington is such a male-dominated town.

TPM is known to be an opinionated publication. How much of your opinion goes into your posts?

There’s no magic equation, because oftentimes I’ll post something and Josh or David Kurtz, the other editor, will say, “Eh, we need to dial that back a few degrees.” But they’ve never said “You can’t say that.” It’s a matter of letting your informed opinion dribble in there to the extent that it’s productive to get the story out.

Daniel Strauss is a junior at the University of Michigan.

Related Stories

• Tapping For Tuition: Penn State Student Dances to Fund His Education
• Richard Cordray Talks Student Lending, For-Profit Colleges with Campus Progress
• Five Minutes With: Tar Sands Arrestee
• Former Campus Progress Intern Vying for School Board Seat
• Five Minutes With Tree-Occupying Coal Activist Catherine-Ann MacDougal