The Times piece nicely captures why Allen has become a star in this environment. “[K]nown as an unfailingly fair, fast and prolific reporter,” he hated it when editors at The Washington Post, where he used to work, told him they didn’t have space for his stories. But he “struggled to write the front-page analytical stories that were the traditional preserve of newspaper ‘stars.’ Harris, who wrote many of these during his 21 years at the Post, says that the whirling production demands of today’s news environment have caught up to Allen’s sleepless, spaceless peculiarities.”
The business side is happy, too.
While most Playbook subscribers live around Washington, significant numbers work on Wall Street, in state capitals and at news and entertainment companies on both coasts. Major retailers (Starbucks) and obscure lobbies (Catfish Farmers of America) pay $15,000 a week to advertise in Playbook, a figure that is expected to rise.
Ka-ching! Encouraged by its success on the national politics front, Politico’s parent company is set to launch a local Washington news site soon.
But does that make it a model?
“I’ve been in Washington about 30 years,” Mark Salter, a former chief of staff and top campaign aide to John McCain, says. “And here’s the surprising reality: On any given day, not much happens. It’s just the way it is.” Not so in the world of Politico, he says, where meetings in which senators act like themselves (maybe sarcastic or short) become “tension filled” affairs. “They have taken every worst trend in reporting, every single one of them, and put them on rocket fuel,” Salter says. “It’s the shortening of the news cycle. It’s the trivialization of news. It’s the gossipy nature of news. It’s the self-promotion.”
Ouch. Don’t think I could have said it better.
But please, don’t miss this Leibovich note:
Salter asked that if I quoted him, I also mention that he likes and respects many Politico reporters, beginning with Mike Allen.
Put differently:
“Playbook is D.C.’s Facebook,” VandeHei concluded. “And Mike’s the most popular friend.”That’s fine. But the future of Washington reporting? I hope not.
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