Politico’s sale last month to the German media company Axel Springer for a reported $1 billion was the culmination of a stunning rise of a publication founded in 2007 in what most people assumed was an overly-crowded market: coverage of Washington and U. S. politics. Politico is now read by insiders as much as bigger, long-standing outlets such as the New York Times and The Post, and that billion-dollar sale price is more than three times what Jeff Bezos paid for The Post in 2013. But the rise and enduring influence of Politico, while great for its owner Robert Allbritton, has been a troubling development for consumers of American political news. At its start, Politico rightly identified two shortcomings in political media: It was too slow and too dull. Politico pioneered the fast-paced coverage of Capitol Hill and campaigns that now thrives on Twitter and cable news. And it recognized that there is a real audience of people who love the behind-the-scenes machinations of politics. I was a political reporter when Politico was founded and was envious of its compelling and often fun coverage. In 2007, the political media was indeed slow and dull, but it also suffered from several other problems: a bias for politicians and policies that were considered bipartisan or centrist; little racial diversity among journalists and a White-centric news approach; an obsession with placating Republicans who cast the media as too liberal; little coverage of politics beyond D. C.; and coverage of politics like it was a sport. Remember that the Washington press corps (myself included) had a few years earlier largely accepted the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq. That was a massive failure that happened in part because journalists were wary of too harshly criticizing a GOP administration and because the war was supported by members of both parties in Congress, giving it a centrist and bipartisan sheen. Politico largely embraced those prevailing orthodoxies of political journalism, particularly in its early days — it was Beltway-focused, obsessed with not offending Republican readers, sometimes resembled sports coverage and its leading reporters were nearly all White. It was in many ways just a faster, more interesting version of how politics had long been covered. And that really worked. Politico became very influential, particularly among people involved in politics, as well as among political journalists and editors who didn’t work at Politico. For more than a decade, not only did Politico keep gaining strength, but the entire political media became more like Politico. Editors rushed to hire staffers from the Northern Virginia-based outlet. They also pressed their existing staffers to cover politics the way Politico did — more scoops, more insider gossip, a faster pace.
All data is taken from the source: http://washingtonpost.com
Article Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/07/politico-rise-shifted-political-journalism-off-course/
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