TPM or Talking points memo to you and me, is a successful political journalism blog site, the brainchild of Josh Marshall. It gets an average of 400,000 page views daily, a blog to be proud of.  The news centers heavily on the political news of the day giving a balanced-yet-kind-of-lefty view. It doesn’t just harp on about political stuff like Obama’s wailing in congress or Republicans shaking their fingers at over ambitious Democrats, or blowing smoke up John Stewart’s ass for being terribly politically witty, it’s also writes about… no wait, that’s exactly all it is.

I suppose I’m being a tiny bit unfair, this is a hard hitting political website, not just relating other peoples research and articles, but gathering its own stories and research. You may say this is a news interactive website in its own right, being updated daily by there own bloggers or journalists? The videos on this website are not exactly internationally friendly, with some interviews and reports slapping you in the face by saying “YOU’RE IN THE WRONG COUNTRY.” Once you get over the disappointment at not being an American, seeing them clutch onto their vast amounts of lovely media, you begin to enjoy the journalistic content and the interesting links they offer to stories on other websites.

Even though this is an interesting site, with a good political scope, I wouldn’t find myself checking it everyday, or be it every month. The problem is that their political scope is largely contained to the US and the international stage is left to fend for itself, unless it interferes with Hillary, Bill, or Obama, we don’t hear about it. Conversely thanks to TPM if I wished to find out about the political stage in America then I’ll know exactly who to turn to, the daily show with John Stewart.

A lot can be said about foot tapping music, stylish camera angles, and well thought out dialog, here it entices you in and makes you withstand the less interesting Videos. Here at “(i.e.) npr in other words” it gives a chance for alternative journalists to let go of the conventional media style they learned at University, and release the artistic flare to run wild onto our computer screens, if you let it, and I think you should.

The creator of each video combines drawings, photos, short film clips and animation to put across interesting and sometimes powerful points of view. Since going through all these different types of multimedia projects I’ve found the paring of audio and photos very striking when produced well, with correctly placed audio and striking photos, it can give us a chance to focus on those particular moments that mean more then we knew, as the audio moves on it illuminates these photographic revelations.

The layout of this website is not particularly groundbreaking, they obviously didn’t spend some obscene amount of money to some overpriced web designer, they kept it simple, and let the videos do the talking. There is good jumble of work here from videos named “The House That Rice Built” to “Probing Through Whiskers” and last but not at all least “love on line”

I found this website a good exercise in multimedia journalism, it didn’t seem to bog itself down into one particular area. Joining all videos in one long stream connecting each of them with a simple bit of audio worked, but I found myself being unable to sit through all of them in one go, I’m afraid there is a limit.

As I eat into my brothers savings, I wonder, how will it all end? I’m not starving, I’m not sleeping in a shop window hoping my shoes are still on my feet when i wake up, but I am a little miffed at building up a dept that stock brokers would quiver at. Even with a student loan, these days University is gamble, so as I sit at the roulette table with my chips on red, I have a hopeful stare at the croupier, and I wait with bated breath.