Leibovich mentions a recent web spoof that “gave voice to a belief that Politico’s cultlike mission demands a freakish devotion that only an action-hero workaholic could achieve. ‘A page-view sweatshop’ is how one Politico writer described the place to me.” Ouch. But wait, there’s more.
Several current and former Politico employees were eager to relay their resentment of the place to me, though with a few exceptions, none for attribution. “It’s not so much the sweatshoppery itself that I minded,” said Ryan Grim, a former Politico reporter who is now at The Huffington Post. “It was the arbitrary nature of how it was applied.”
For top Politico brass, the best defense looks like more offense:
Kingsley, the Politico executive vice president, e-mailed me an unsolicited defense: “In my experience, the people who whine about working at Politico shouldn’t be at Politico,” she wrote. “They likely lack the metabolism and professional drive it takes to thrive here. For those of us who love a fast pace and a tough challenge, this place is a calling, not a job.”
[Co-founder John] Harris readily acknowledges that Politico is “not for everybody,” and [co-founder Jim] VandeHei said they have begun focusing their recruiting on New York, because “the city produces reporters who are fearless, fast and ruthlessly competitive.”
Yeah. We’re pretty soft here in Washington. Taking a break now.
Okay, I’m back. It’s also unsettling to read about the odd, almost passive role Politico seems happy to be playing. It’s a bit of a paradox, when you think about how hyperactive the place is.
Just as many sources talk to Woodward because they assume everyone is, the White House will leak early talking points to Allen because they know that, for instance, Dick Cheney seems to have made Allen the go-to outlet for many of his criticisms of the current administration. Like Woodward, Allen can be tagged with the somewhat loaded moniker of “access journalist.” Clearly the political and news establishments love him. The feeling is mutual and somewhat transactional. They use him and vice versa (“love” and “use” being mutually nonexclusive in Washington). He seems to know everyone and works at it.
Allen may be the “go-to outlet,” but that doesn’t make it good journalism. I remember seeing this Politico story last year, and wondering about it:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama on Tuesday of “trying to pretend we are not at war” with terrorists, pointing to the White House response to the attempted sky bombing as reflecting a pattern that includes banishing the term “war on terror” and attempting to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
“[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe,” Cheney said in a statement to POLITICO. “Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society.”
They posted his statement in full, but without any follow-up questions.
I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that DC sources are happy with that format. But should Politico go along with it?
Political operatives I speak to tend to deploy the word “use” a lot in connection with Politico; as in, they “use” the publication to traffic certain stories they know they could not or would not get published elsewhere. I was also struck by how freely VandeHei threw out the word “market” in connection with how newsmakers and sources interacted with Politico. “If you want to move data or shape opinion,” VandeHei wrote to me by e-mail, “you market it through Mikey and Playbook, because those tens of thousands that matter most all read it and most feed it. Or you market it through someone else at Politico, which will make damn sure its audience of insiders and compulsives read it and blog about it; and that it gets linked around and talked about on TV programs.”
Yuck.
I live in the DC area and remember the launch of Politico.com and its print newspaper a few years ago. I was initially excited about the debut of a new news outlet for politics. However, my excitement was quickly doused with missteps--a major one: reporting John Edwards would quit his campaign when Elizabeth's cancer returned. The need to "out" scoop competitors is nothing new. But Politico has brought a useless sense of hyperactivity to political news. I thought I would never agree with anything that comes out of McCain's camp but Mark Salter is correct. Political news has been cheapened for the sake of the worthless scoop and heavy-handed "analysis" to sound like an insider. Vanity Fair did a similar piece on Politico about a year ago.
#1 Posted by LC, CJR on Thu 22 Apr 2010 at 02:41 PM
Totally agree with your story! Politico hired a newsroom of 20-something reporters, paid them nothing, and churns out "bits" of news. Deep thinking and in-depth investigations are never done. The NYT story didn't probe deep enough into Allen's background -- why not talk to his family and probe the right-wing connections? And what motivates his ADHD character? We'll never know from the cover story. Maybe the author should have interviewed some Time Magazine correspondents in Washington, who watched with stunned wonder when the janitor cleaned out the waist-high dump that was once Allen's office during his days there. Clothing, crumpled papers, food, you name it -- the guy is a hoarder on top of everything else. Perfect for Politico!
#2 Posted by journalist, CJR on Fri 23 Apr 2010 at 11:22 AM