In early 2005, ThinkProgress.org was born. George W. Bush was president, a movie ticket cost $6 and the best-selling cell phone in the world looked like this:
A lot has changed since then. But one thing has remained constant: ThinkProgress’ commitment to write about things that matter.
We highlighted the massive influence of the Koch Brothers years before other outlets started paying attention. We talked to Herman Cain and made Islamophobia an issue for an entire Republican presidential primary. We listened to Paul Ryan and changed the way he talked about poverty.
We exposed an anti-gay pastor who was scheduled to speak at Obama’s inauguration and a deeply flawed voter purge in Florida. We were one of the first outlets to shine a light on the death of Trayvon Martin and were credited with helping make his tragic story go viral.
We’ve produced deeply reported investigative pieces on the Redskins, a West Virginia prison and the worst town in America to be homeless.
We’ve built the largest site on the internet dedicated to climate, fueled by groundbreaking reporting on everything from Chipotle’s guacamole to solar energy fees.
(I could go on, but ThinkProgress has published over 115,000 articles in the last 10 years and we are all busy people.)
In 2005, Twitter didn’t exist and Facebook was only open to college students. Today, ThinkProgress has over 360,000 Twitter followers and 1.4 million Facebook fans. Our MySpace page, sadly, has gone dormant.
But enough about the past, I’m more excited about the future. That’s because today we have a team of 35 smart, passionate, dedicated people who believe that writing about things that matter can make a difference. In January, nearly 10 million people read their work:
Special thanks to John Podesta, who believed in us enough to start ThinkProgress and Neera Tanden who has given us the support we’ve needed to grow and thrive.
Here’s to another 10 years.