Tired of snot-nosed, wet-behind-the-ears political bloggers? Are you a political junky who wants your daily dose of Washington politics heavy with experience and laden with inside-the-beltway celebrity interviews? Then surf on over to The Politico and see what you’re missing.Albritton Communications launched the multimedia venture in January, 2007. The mission? “Covering the politics of Capitol Hill and of the presidential campaign, and the business of Washington lobbying and advocacy with enterprise, style, and impact.”
“The model that we’re following is a bit different,” Fred Ryan, COO of parent company Albritton Communications said. “Some of these other outlets have a model where you hire somebody who’s 24 or 25 years old, pay them $30,000 a year and they stay for a little while and then move on. You get the level of sources and insight and understanding of the process that you would expect for somebody who is early in his or her career. They don’t have the same journalistic standards as you see in major media.”
As an example, The Politico snagged former Washington Post editor John Harris to helm it as Editor in Chief. Other high profile journalists include Jonathan Martin (National Review); Roger Simon (U.S. News and World Report chief political correspondent); Mike Allen (Time Magazine); Ben Smith (New York Daily News); and Jim VandeHei (Washington Post).
The experience and contacts of the ownership will pay off in the gaining access to major political players. Albritton Communications also hopes it will pay off because the Politico also includes a print product, the Politico newspaper, targeted to Capitol Hill, agencies, lobbyists and politicians. In addition, there are deals afoot for staffer appearances on CBS-TV, the Washington DC local cable news Channel 8 (also owned by Albritton Communications), and on radio.
Clearly an ambitious gambut for Ryan. He says, “We are definitely looking at the long term,” notinig that it took Albritton’s Channel 8 five years to achieve profitability.
The Politico is a standard mix of political cartoon humor, political gossip, and race politics. And by race politics, I mean the 2008 Presidential race! The writing is as professional as one would expect, given the seniority of the staffers. There is one thing, finding a staff list was well nigh impossible. Individual biographies can be found by clicking on a reporter’s name, but that’s not nearly as comforting as being able to eyeball a list of names, and nod knowingly. If that’s what wrong with it, aside from its slightly right-of-center political leanings, then it certainly can be a called a site worth surfing to again and again.
