The newsroom of the Politico, the online and print news venture starting publication in two weeks, looks like a typical one -- reporters tap on computers at desks while banks of televisions hum overhead. But unlike a standard newspaper, the Politico will be devoted to a single topic: national politics. Another difference: It's hiring.
As many newspapers across the country cut staff and trim Washington coverage, the Politico is finding younger journalists and some veterans -- including John Harris and Jim VandeHei from the Washington Post, Mike Allen from Time magazine and Roger Simon from Bloomberg News -- who are willing to leave the once-secure confines of traditional print to join a startup.
"It seems riskier to stay in print than to go to something new," said Ben Smith, 30, a reporter for the Daily News in New York, who will write a blog for the Politico about the 2008 presidential campaign.
If the Politico succeeds, it could signal that the Web has become a more plausible alternative for mainstream journalists (most bloggers offer their blogs for free, and rare is the site that pays reporters to create original content).
But there are skeptics who say that the focus of the Politico is too narrow and that the marketplace too crowded with sources of political news, from sites like RealClearPolitics.com to scores of other publications, including newspapers and their Web sites. Partisans, especially, feast on sites that affirm their views; the Politico says it will be nonpartisan.
The Politico, financed by Allbritton Communications and based in suburban Washington in a glassy tower that once housed Gannett, has smoothed the transition for print journalists with handsome salaries, though no one is talking exact figures.
Publisher Robert Allbritton, 37, scion of the banking and media family that owned the defunct Washington Star, said he would finance the Politico for "the foreseeable future" and has committed to paying for expensive campaign travel.
He has hired a staff of about 50 people, almost half journalists.
ALL THINGS TO ALL
"Newspapers have to be all things to all people," Allbritton said. "On the Internet, there is no one site that delivers everything. It's broken down into mini-mini-subdivisions of interests and they attract people who are passionately interested in one subject."
Allbritton said he has no political agenda and is in the business because it could be profitable; if Google or some other entity eventually wanted to buy it, he said, "that would be great," but that was not part of his business plan (he briefly considered buying the Hill last year, but declined; the asking price was a reported US$40 million).
He is best known for following his father, Joe Allbritton, as chief executive of the Riggs Bank, which was sold in 2004 after a Senate investigation found that General Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, had kept millions of dollars in secret accounts at Riggs. Robert Allbritton has been chairman and chief executive of Allbritton Communications, which owns television stations in Washington and a half dozen other markets, since 2001.
He predicted that the Politico would start turning a profit in less than five years, from advertising in all of its incarnations -- on the Web, with its own television program and in a limited print edition, with 30,000 copies three days a week while Congress is in session and one day a week when Congress is in recess. The Politico will be free for readers, both online and in print.
It is hoping to attract advertisers that pay to be in other publications aimed at Washington -- chiefly, political advocacy groups that are trying to influence Congress, as well as local businesses.
One of the few models for what the Politico is trying to do might be Inside.com, a media-oriented Web site that tried to branch into print and conferences. It started in 2000 with venture capital backing and it, too, attracted well-known journalists eager for the promise of riches and fame from the Web. Alas, it vanished almost two years later after the dotcom bust.
"We were ahead of our time," said Kurt Andersen, one of the founders of Inside.com and now a contributing editor at New York magazine.
He said the Politico has an advantage because "there is now this huge online ad sales culture."
"But you wonder, with this narrowly defined, very Washington-centric political focus, no matter how great it is, what is the size of that audience? You can be the best, but if it doesn't have a gigantic audience, advertisers won't be interested," he said.
Harris, 43, who left his job as political editor of the Post to become editor in chief of the Politico, said the site would distinguish itself with lively writing, scoops, video and behind-the-scenes reporting from the campaign trail. The goal, he said, is not to steal audiences from other publications but for the Politico to become part of their routine as they surf the entire multimedia landscape.
And as they surf, Politico reporters will pop up everywhere. The Politico is planning its own regular half-hour program on Allbritton's 24-hour cable news service, Channel 8, which reaches 1.1 million viewers in the region. Its reporters are to appear on CBS News programs. And the Politico is planning a five-minute daily segment in the late afternoon on WTOP, Washington's all-news radio station.
WIDER PROMOTION
And unlike many old-school newspapers, the Politico is encouraging its reporters to promote their work elsewhere. Allen, 42, who covered the White House for Time, will continue to write a column for the magazine's print version. Simon, 58, the Politico's chief political columnist, said that he had arranged for his Politico column to be syndicated in newspapers across the US.
"The most successful journalists these days have a promotional ethic that would be uncomfortable for a traditional journalist," Harris said. "I admire those people who say, `I don't want to go on TV; my work speaks for itself,' but I don't think that's realistic for people who want to have an impact."
VandeHei, 35, who left his job as a national political correspondent at the Post to be the Politico's executive editor, said he had concern that sources whom reporters had developed at other papers might not follow them to the Politico.
"Yes, it was easier to get someone on the phone because I worked for the Post," he said. "But I can count on one hand the number of stories that were leaked to me because I worked at the Post. Reporters here will transcend the organization."
That investment in the individual over the organization is relatively new for print journalists, emerging more as the Web has increasingly offered alternatives and newspapers have hit economic turbulence.
While the Post, for example, has been investing in its Web site, advertising revenue at its print edition fell by 11 percent in the third quarter last year compared with the previous year and circulation was down more than 3 percent. Last year, 170 people, including 70 in the newsroom, took buyouts and left the paper.
"Allbritton has created a lot of excitement," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "At a time when people in journalism feel frustrated that newsrooms are shrinking and their horizons are shrinking, this is a sign of a new economic model of a specialized site, where journalists can be entrepreneurial."
Michael Kinsley, the founding editor of Slate.com, said it was a positive sign that mainstream journalists were signing up to work for the Politico.
When Slate.com started in 1996, he said, "you couldn't get anyone from the establishment."
But he questioned whether the Politico could carve out a niche for itself in a world glutted with political news.
"I'm thinking, `God, I can't keep up with it all,'" he said. "But, then again, I would have thought there was no more room for another Starbucks in Dupont Circle, and there always is."
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