Opinion Journalism and the Politics of Language July 17, 2008

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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2007/11/07/Solutions_The_Future_Political_Landscape

Talking Points Memo blogger Josh Marshall discusses the balance an opinion journalist must hold between political advocacy and informative reporting.

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On the 60th anniversary of Orwell's Politics and the English Language, George Orwell described political speech as consisting "largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." Some six decades later, many symptoms of manipulation and propaganda diagnosed by Orwell persist on the American political landscape, along with new disinformation techniques enabled by modern technology.

Historians, scientists, philosophers, linguists, cognitive experts, journalists, image-makers, and public figures will debate in three separate sessions the current state of political discourse - and journalism's response to it - on the dawn of a bitterly contested presidential campaign - NYPL

Josh Marshall is the publisher of Talking Points Memo, TPMmuckraker, TPM Election Central and TPMCafe. He also writes a weekly column for the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill. His articles on politics and foreign affairs have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers across the United States as well as abroad, including the American Prospect, the Atlantic Monthly, the Boston Globe, the Financial Times, , the New Republic, the New Yorker, the New York Post, the New York Times, Salon, and Slate. Marshall graduated from Princeton in 1991 and holds a doctorate in American history from Brown. He lives in New York City with his wife Millet, their son Sam, and their dog Simon.