Posted on 11/21/2006 11:36:24 AM PST by abb
Online Exclusive » An online start-up lures two top political journalists. Posted November 21, 2006
By Rem Rieder Rem Rieder (rrieder@ajr.umd.edu) is AJR's editor and senior vice president. It may not be a sign of the apocalypse, but it has the feel of a truly significant benchmark.
The defection of Washington Post Political Editor John Harris and ace political reporter Jim VandeHei to an online start-up is not just a crushing loss for the Post. It's a dramatic manifestation of the ongoing shift from old media to new.
It's also a reflection of the angst at the once unshakeable Post, beset by sagging circulation and massive buyouts and the loss of top talent. It comes days after a memo from Executive Editor Len Downie signaling newsroom realignment, ongoing attrition, smaller newsholes and shorter stories.
It's not that long ago that such a jump from the Post would have been unimaginable.
The Post politicos will be anchoring an ambitious "multimedia political news venture," to quote the press release, bankrolled by Allbritton Communications. The venture is not without old-media components. It includes a new Washington, D.C., newspaper, the Capitol Leader, slated to debut in January. And Harris and VandeHei will make regular television appearances on CBS, including on "Face the Nation." But clearly the new politics Web site is the linchpin of the endeavor.
Harris told the New York Times' Kit Seelye, "No one should interpret this as people taking flight from the old media." But one of VandeHei's comments in the Times' piece was telling: He said he got 95 percent of his news online. This from a mainstay of one of the flagships of prime-time print journalism.
Of course, VandeHei is hardly alone. I see it in my own news habits. I've spent my entire career in print, at six newspapers, a news service and a magazine. I subscribe to the Post and the New York Times. Yet it's not unusual for me to read some of the top stories in both papers online the night before the print versions show up outside my condo door. And while I may sample them at breakfast, I read a lot more of the Times and the Post — and numerous other news sources — on the computer throughout the day.
While readers and ads continue to migrate online, though, no economic model has yet emerged to support full-scale newsgathering operations there. And there's no guarantee the Allbritton initiative will survive and flourish. The brief history of online journalism has no shortage of flameouts.
But there's little question we're in the midst of a period of profound change, and the moves by Harris and VandeHei are a fascinating reminder of that fact.
Media/Entertainment
Papers Embrace Enemy
By Nat Worden
TheStreet.com Staff Reporter
11/21/2006 7:24 AM EST
URL: http://www.thestreet.com/newsanalysis/mediaentertainment/10323421.html
When it comes to the rise of Web giants like Google (GOOG) and Yahoo! (YHOO) , newspapers are teaming up in reciting an old adage: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Separate deals announced recently by both Internet companies show that major newspaper publishers across the country are forging relationships with the Web titans in hopes of tapping into the massive online advertising market that has largely left them in the dust.
That said, the willingness on the part of Google and Yahoo! to cut revenue-sharing deals with publishers that have been written off by some investors as a dying breed is evidence that daily papers, and their expensive news-gathering operations, still provide indispensable content for their local audiences.
"A core part of our investment thesis in newspapers is the growing opportunity of the Internet," says Charles Bobrinskoy, vice chairman with asset manager Ariel Capital, which has holdings in Lee Enterprises (LEE) , Journal Register (JRC) , Gannett (GCI) and Tribune (TRB) .
"Most of our newspaper holdings are showing 25% to 30% growth in interactive revenue," he says. " [Monday's] Yahoo! announcement shows that leading Internet companies also value the content which newspapers control."
On Monday, Yahoo! said it will team up with a consortium of print publishers to use its technology to sell advertising and offer search functions on the Web sites of 176 newspapers in 38 states.
The deal will allow Yahoo! to reach local audiences tied to their hometown newspapers. Meanwhile, the group of publishers will access Yahoo!'s online portals to expand their reach and grab back some precious revenue that has migrated away in recent years as more consumers turn to the Web for their information needs.
"Essentially, we both have things to sell to generate new revenue that we didn't have before," said William Dean Singleton, the CEO of privately held MediaNews Group, on a conference call with analysts following the announcement. "I think today's announcement very loudly shouts that we can and we will [adjust to an online world] ."
MediaNews, publisher of the San Jose Mercury-News, among other newspapers, teamed up with Belo (BLC) , Cox Newspapers, Hearst Newspapers, Journal Register, Lee Enterprises and E.W. Scripps (SSP) in the partnership. Singleton said he expects more newspaper publishers to sign on soon.
The financial terms of the deal were kept under wraps, but the parties will share revenue streams resulting from the collaboration.
The partnership will start in December, when the newspaper companies will begin posting their employment ads on Yahoo!'s jobs site, HotJobs, and start using HotJobs technology to run their own online career ads. Ultimately, the relationship will be expanded so the content from the newspapers will be tagged and optimized for searching and indexing on Yahoo!'s Web sites.
On the conference call, newspaper executives said some of their newspapers would be switching their jobs listings to HotJobs from other popular employment sites, like CareerBuilder and Monster Worldwide (MNST) . Otherwise, they said the partnership would not affect existing relationships with other Web companies, but they were careful to specify that they will be using Yahoo! as their primary online partner.
That marks a rift developing in the publishing world, as other newspaper conglomerates have recently announced their own advertising partnership with Yahoo!'s chief rival, Google. Two weeks ago, Google said it will start selling print ads in newspapers published by the New York Times (NYT) , Washington Post (WPO) , McClatchy (MNI) , Gannett and Tribune.
That deal will give newspapers access to the hundreds of thousands of advertisers that do business with Google, many of which are new-age Web companies that weren't previously advertising with newspapers.
"We have strong partnerships with many leading newspapers, and we remain committed to working with them as they grow their businesses on line and offline," says Michael Mayzel, a Google spokesman.
Google's most recent partnership with newspapers is currently in a test phase that will last three months, during which the Internet giant will record no revenue as it connects its online advertisers with print space in metro dailies like The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. If the test is a success, Google will probably start taking a small commission on such deals.
Google has long had online advertising relationships with major newspapers, using technology to post ads that match the content on a specific Web page.
" [This] is an opportunity for us to show these advertisers the power and response of print advertising, and specifically the power and response of advertising in The New York Times," says Denise Warren, chief advertising officer of the New York Times, about the latest agreement. "We see it as a test with very little to no risk."
Unlike the Google deal, Yahoo!'s agreement with newspapers does not include the prospect of selling print ads.
"We have not had discussions about Yahoo! selling onto our print products," said Singleton. "That's not to say that we couldn't have them."
Edward Atorino, analyst with the Benchmark Company, says these deals represent an early step for newspapers in repositioning themselves for the digital age.
"This is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel for newspaper publishers," says Atorino. "It's another way for them to get a piece of the revenue that has moved online and start the process of fixing their business models."
"There was a land of Publishers and Editors called the Newspaper Business... Here in this pretty world Journalism took its last bow... Here was the last ever to be seen of Reporters and their Enablers, of Anonymous Sources and of Stringers... Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilization Gone With the Wind..."
With apologies to Margaret Mitchell...
http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=12031
Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 11/21/2006 2:13:51 PM
Title: Blame Downie?
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
From TREVOR BUTTERWORTH: Rem Reider is right to say that the departure of Jim VandeHei and John Harris is a "crushing blow" to the Washington Post, but he misses the salient point: this is a failure of management and leadership at a newspaper rather than a cypher for technological change and the news business.
No company can survive without cultivating and keeping talent. Leadership, as Jack Welch has tirelessly pointed out, is finding the right people for the job, nurturing them, and giving them the opportunities to do more and to do better. The Post has a website, possibly the best day-to-day coverage of national politics of any publication in the U.S., a formidable brand name and - despite its current economic woes - huge resources, so the departure of two of its top journalists suggests an extraordinary lack of imagination, flexibility, and management skill in conceiving and executing the mission of the newspaper. All of which concurs with the jibes one hears in journalistic circles in Washington about the Post foundering in entrenched mediocrity.
Perhaps Leonard Downie did everything he could to keep his reporters
at the paper. But to the world, it looks like the kind of failure that normally precedes a change at the top. [Permalink]
Ping
Don't read too much into this. What it amounts to is the same reporters and editors moving to a different medium. The skills are the same, and the brand name is, if anything, more important than ever.
What's different is the level of competition -- for readers and ad revenue. 10 years ago, it would have been absurd to think that two reporters from the Washington Post could jump ship and start their own newspaper. The Web makes it easier for the little guy to compete, and also taps into bloggers and amateurs -- what's commonly called "citizen journalism," but I prefer to call "open-source journalism."
I grew up on print journalism, and still prefer it to TV most of the time, but now I can get the same articles online. I accumulate enough stuff without having 20-30 lbs.of paper brought to my door each week that I then have to deal with. What frustrates me are the magazines that offer full online access to subscribers of the print magazine -- could I just pay the money (or hopefully a bit less) and skip the dead-tree delivery?
Someone seems to think there's a limited amount of "talent" out there, and that's just not true, at least not at this level. There may only be a small number of people who have the potential to turn into the next David Brinkley or H. L. Mencken - the sort of person whose writing is so good that you can practically tell who it is from the first two sentences - but there's tons of people who are simply good reporters, and these two are in the latter category.
My guess is that no readers will even notice that these two have jumped ship. FR is loaded with political junkies, who ought to make up some of the Post's most hardcore readers. If we did a poll, I'd bet only 5% of Freepers would even know who VandeHei is, and that's only because his name is so unusual.
with roll paper instead of a sheet tray?
That graphic is a hoot.
Big news today at The Washington Post, where political editor John Harris and star political reporter Jim VandeHei (and perhaps others still to be revealed) are jumping ship to join a new Web-centric serious politics site. The site will be built on top of the nascent Capitol Leader, a planned politics magazine.
But this is much bigger than that. There's serious money behind it, from Albritton Communications, and they've already lined up guaranteed appearances on CBS' Face the Nation.
This is a major blow to The Post (and The Post knows it), not just because the paper is losing two stars, but because the new site will be a major competitor in political coverage—an area WashingtonPost.com has always been a bit deficient in. Sure, Post.com had all of The Post's great political coverage from the paper, but the Web site really didn't go much beyond that beyond a couple of blogs. It let ABC News build a huge franchise with The Note and never really came up with a matching product, and years ago it killed its best effort to make a major play in online political coverage, PoliticsNow.
When your franchise is politics and you don't do everything you can to build on that on the Web, you leave yourself vulnerable, not only to competiton but to frustrated insiders heading out on their own to do it themselves. That's what's happening here. From the internal Post memo, it's clear that the newspaper and Web site have been put on a war footing—but they should have been building a great online political product years ago, not in reaction to today's defections. Jim Brady and Liz Spayd, who will oversee WashingtonPost.com's response, are great journalists (and old friends of mine), and they'll do a good job responding. But they're going to be playing catch-up, and doing it without a couple of key assets who just walked out the door.
This development also makes me wonder if there may be other, similar opportunities for deep, vertical Web startups in other subjects, based on hiring strong newspaper talent. Maybe a great arts site in New York? A Hollywood site in L.A.? Deep local sports sites? It's an interesting model, and it will be interesting to see if Capitol Leader proves to be a watershed for strip-mining newspapers to start alternative Web news sites.
The Post Exodus
What it means for political journalism.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006, at 6:39 PM ET
How should we read the defection of political journalists John Harris and Jim VandeHei from the Washington Post to Allbritton Communications, where they'll head a new "multimedia" Web news platform to cover politics? Their site will incorporate the D.C.-based Allbritton's local TV station, its local cable news station, and its forthcoming Capitol Hill newspaper, and they intend to hire a half-dozen well-known reporters. Another Post ace, David Von Drehle, is bound for Time magazine.
Are journalists leaping from the newspaper ship before it sinks?
If swarms of midlevel reporters were making this exodus instead of senior aces, I might draw that conclusion. But Harris, VandeHei, and Von Drehle have been bid away for top dollar, which makes it hard to view them as survivors awaiting rescue. Even if Harris and VandeHei weren't worth the fantastic salaries they've been said to negotiate (My opinion? They are.), Allbritton has already recouped its premium with loads of positive publicity in the press.
So, while I wish Harris and VandeHei great success—if only because it will encourage my bosses to think that I'm worth twice my salary—let me offer these cautionary notes about their new venture.
Both Harris and VandeHei are stars, but let's admit that some of their luster came by their association with the Post, the premiere source for political news from Washington. The newspaper's brand is so strong that I've known journalistic midgets who, upon becoming Post reporters, suddenly towered over their competitors like Yao Ming. If you're an Important Thing in Washington, a phone call that begins with "This is Tiny Squat from the Washington Post" is either the last thing or the first thing you want to receive in the morning. Either way, you'll pay attention to what the reporters says, and if you know what's good for you, you'll return it and talk.
Of course, Harris and VandeHei will get most of their calls returned without dispensing Post pixie dust, but they won't necessarily be at the head of the line in their new gig. Washington and New York are the only places in the country where the number of good reporters exceeds the number of good sources, which gives sources leverage.
The Harris-VandeHei-Von Drehle departures rob the Post of great institutional memory, as do the most recent buyouts, which 86ed such veterans as Thomas B. Edsall, Guy Gugliotta, Jerry Knight, Paul Blustein, and Albert B. Crenshaw. Also gone are Steve Coll (to The New Yorker), Mike Allen (to Time), and Mark Leibovich (to the New York Times). All of these losses weakened the Post, but with the possible exceptions of Mike Royko and Mary McGrory, nobody in American journalism is irreplaceable. The Post has always had a strong bench, and there's never been a scarcity of experienced reporters in Washington or talented minor leaguers out in the provinces dying to play for Team Graham. Advantage: the Washington Post.
The Allbritton raid does, however, serve notice to the Post that it can no longer take its status as the leader in political journalism for granted. The Allbritton press release promises that the new package will offer "unmatched, web-based, one-stop-shop for political news coverage. They will challenge the traditional media for dominance in covering national politics and Congress." Bloomberg News is expanding its Washington bureau out, and it wants both the Post's lunch and dessert. The real question for the paper is how best to maintain its position. Some say we've entered an era in which content is king, but Slate's history has taught me King Content ain't going nowhere unless Queen Distribution gets him there. In Microsoft, Slate's first owner, and the Washington Post Co., its current owner, Slate has had two superb distribution engines to fling its copy at readers. It won't do VandeHarris.com much good to break the news of the second, third, and fourth comings of Christ unless Allbritton finds a better distribution partner for the site than its own properties and CBS.
Inside the Post newsroom, reporters are less anxious about the exits of reporters and launches of new competitors than they are about the top editors' failure to map a coherent battle plan for the future. Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. issued a Nov. 14 memo to the staff, which was supposed to sooth the fretful, but reading it is like wading through a field of wheat paste. I don't even work at the Post, and I wanted to commit suicide after I trudged through its final, gloomy paragraph.
Among VandeHei's expressed reasons for leaving the Post was a hunger for a journalistic scrap and the bragging rights that come with building something new. "This is not a statement about the Post," he told the New York Times. "It's about having a rare opportunity to be given what it takes to build your dream news organization."
With his comment, VandeHei reveals the deep, dark secret of the quality journalist: He's not an incurable cynic, he's a goofy idealist. Political reporters—at the Post and elsewhere—want their editors to pour some of this VandeHei oil on them and rub them until they bleed. They want editors to climb up on desks and tell them how the elections have cleaned the slates up on Capitol Hill and that with new leadership installed in both parties, the journalistic game has been reset. They want their editors to tell them that in the Internet era, politics doesn't belong to the Post anymore: It's up for grabs. Reporters want to be told to get their asses up to the Hill, rebuild their source lists, break stories, and pack their bags for the presidential campaign, which is approaching liftoff.
At the Post, reporters are waiting for editors to tell them to break VandeHarris.com's back in a million pieces, string its body on a chain-link fence, and eat its decaying flesh. Who at the paper has the gumption to tell them that?
******
Godaddy.com reports that www.vandeharris.com is available. Disclosure: Von Drehle is a friend, although he would probably deny it if you asked him directly. Win my friendship with e-mail to slate.pressbox@gmail.com. (E-mail may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co.)
Shafer's hand-built RSS feed.
Jack Shafer is Slate's editor at large.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2154251/
http://www.observer.com/printpage.asp?iid=13758&ic=Off+the+Record
A New D.C. Paper Poaches, Encroaches Cross-Platforms
By: Michael Calderone
Date: 11/27/2006
Page: 6
Allbritton Communications, which owns seven ABC affiliates, including WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., now wants to own a newspaper.
A newspaper? Didn’t everyone write those old, unprofitable things off?
Allbritton’s paper, a tabloid called The Capitol Leader, will have a circulation of between 20,000 and 30,000, according to Frederick Ryan Jr., Allbritton’s president. It will be published three days a week, though only once a week during Congressional recesses. The majority of its readers—Capitol Hill staffers, lobbyists, that sort of crowd—will receive a free subscription. There will be newsstand sales, and also paid subscriptions. Designer Lou Silverstein, formerly an art director for The New York Times, created a template for the newspaper.
The Capitol Leader will debut in January, along with the new Congress. Allbritton once owned The Washington Star, which shuttered in 1981.
The Capitol Leader is paired with an as-of-yet-unnamed Web site. The paper and the Web site will be run out of the same office, by essentially the same staff. The main newsroom for both will be located in Allbritton’s television facility in Arlington, Va. There will be a smaller news bureau on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C.
“Obviously, you have to have synergy,” said Jim VandeHei, one of the multi-platformed project’s first big hires. (The endeavor, in addition to its Web-friendliness, also has an agreement with CBS on the national level.) “Everything that will be in the paper will be online. All of the people, the stars that we bring in, will be in that paper.”
To staff the startup, Allbritton approached The Washington Post’s political editor, John Harris, a 21-year vet of the paper. They recruited Mr. VandeHei shortly before the midterm elections. Mr. VandeHei was not particularly interested in leaving his job.
“I have one of the coolest jobs in journalism,” Mr. VandeHei said he thought at the time. “Why would I give it up for this?”
Mr. VandeHei told his recruiters that he’d need a big budget to come over—that he’d hire a half-dozen top reporters at a salary “way above what reporters would make at The New York Times and Washington Post.”
There were more demands. They would have to hire six more “rising stars” in political journalism, and have the resources to fly reporters about on the campaign trail with their mainstream-media rivals.
Allbritton went for it. Mr. Harris and Mr. VandeHei went to talk to their Post bosses.
The Post “came back with an unprecedented offer for us to stay,” Mr. VandeHei said, an offer that included positions leading the newspaper’s online political coverage.
Washington Post managing editor Philip Bennet declined to comment on personnel decisions or The Post’s counteroffer.
“We have a really successful, dynamic presence on the Internet,” Mr. Bennett said. “It’s a huge part of the future of the newsroom. It’s embraced by everyone from [publisher] Don Graham to our most recent reporting hire. The idea that one would have to leave The Post to have a career that involved a lot of innovative online journalism doesn’t ring true to me.”
“The distinction between old media and new media is false,” Mr. Bennett said. “The Washington Post, like The New York Times, is in new media. We do it all day long.”
Mr. VandeHei said new-old media types have come clamoring. “I have e-mails from journalists begging for jobs,” he said. “I don’t want to use names, but they are people that you know.”
One Post staffer said the news of the dual departure, compounded with a vague but menacing belt-tightening memo sent on Nov. 14 by editor Len Downie, was “distressing.”
“There is no better place to write about politics than The Washington Post, and they’d rather go to a Web venture. That is pretty scary for the future of journalism,” the staffer said.
Or is the future just too bright?
“I think we’ll show that we’re better than The New York Times or The Washington Post,” Mr. VandeHei said.
“I’m a little bit skeptical that this is enough to launch,” said a D.C.-based political reporter. “It’s two good reporters, but that only takes you so far. You’re competing against giants with just so much institutional leverage.”
Was that leverage, or just baggage? “You can turn a small speedboat faster than an aircraft carrier,” said Mr. Ryan.
“We’ll only attract people who are at a point in their career where they want to start something new,” Mr. Harris said. “There’s a lot of people who are like me, coming up on mid-career, who recognized the world as we know it just doesn’t exist any more. The world of journalism that I came into in 1985 is changing.”
“I’m 43,” Mr. Harris said, “so I’m sure there will be a lot of 23-year-olds to help.”
“I’m hoping that we’ll have the flavor of working for the college newspaper, where everyone pitches in,” he said. He noted it “will be a lot better funded than a college paper.” And: “It’s not going to be Wayne’s World,” he said.
http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/mediapolitics/2742.html
Key Defections Knock Post out of the Lead in Political Coverage
By Harry Jaffe
Loss of Harris, VandeHei, and Von Drehle puts Post at a strong disadvantage
One of the great rivalries in Washington political journalism is over—at least for now: Victory to Brand X, as the Washington Post refers to the New York Times.
With this week’s loss of Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris to a web-based news venture, the Post barely can field a team in the political arena. Add David von Drehle’s move to Time magazine and the Post has lost the core of its political coverage as the 2008 presidential begins to gather momentum.
The New York Times, meanwhile, seems to be getting stronger.
Veteran Times White House correspondent David Sanger just moved up to be chief Washington correspondent. John Broder has returned from Los Angeles to cover politics. Jeff Zeleny recently left the Chicago Tribune to join the Times and now covers money and politics.
“I’m not going to take pleasure from good people leaving the Post,” says Times bureau chief Phil Taubman. “I have great respect for the paper. The better the Washington Post is, the better the L.A. Times is, the better the New York Times will be.”
But at least for now, the New York contender will be much better.
The Post can still go head-to-head with the Times in congressional coverage. Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray make a formidable duo against the Times’ Carl Hulse, David Kirkpatrick, and Kate Zernike. And the Post can still play even in White House coverage, with Peter Baker, Mike Fletcher, and Mike Abramowitz up against Jim Rutenberg and Sheryl Gay Stolberg. Dan Balz at the Post matches up with Adam Nagourney at the Times as the top political writers.
But the competition ends there.
The Post has no match for Robin Toner, who can cover anything well. Anne Kornblut has the Hillary Clinton beat. The Post has no one.
Did I mention Mark Liebovich, who the Times lured from the Post earlier this year? Von Drehle was supposed to fill Liebovich’s political beat in the Style section—until he moved to Time. And Tom Edsall was the Post’s experienced hand in covering money and politics—until he took the recent buyout.
Liz Spayd, who has overseen the Post’s political coverage as assistant managing editor since 2000, is leaving her job to become editor of washingtonpost.com. With Harris and Spayd gone, the Post has to break in two editors to run political coverage.
Add to it all that the Post's star political essayist Dana Milbank is sidelined on book leave.
“It’s [Dan] Balz and Baker and pray for rain,” said one former Post writer.
The drain from the Post—and other newspapers—might have just begun. Allbritton Communications, which is starting up the Internet-focused political news organization that has taken Harris and VandeHei, also has offered a contract to Post writer Chris Cillizza.
Cillizza works for washingtonpost.com, writing a blog called The Fix, but his stories often appear in the print newspaper, and he is often held up as a model of the kind of reporter the Post seeks to hire and promote.
VandeHei, a national political reporter, and Harris, the Post’s political editor, seem to have started a stampede toward the Internet. Writers from the L.A. Times, USA Today, the wires, the Post and television news operations have inquired about jobs at the new online venture.
Neither Harris nor VandeHei said they left the paper because they were unhappy with their jobs or the direction of the paper and its web site.
“Jim and I are eager to be associated with something new and build it from the ground up,” Harris told The Washingtonian. The Allbritton venture—the Albritton family once owned the Washington Star newspaper and still owns WJLA-TV, the ABC outlet in Washington—will include a web site focused only on politics. It will be affiliated with The Capitol Leader, a new Capitol Hill newspaper scheduled to start publication in January. Harris and VandeHei also will have a partnership with CBS News.
Harris and VandeHei took their idea for a new political web site to the Post, and the Post was interested in creating such a venture.
“That was one option,” says Harris, who has been at the Post for 21 years. “We thought long and hard about it. At the end of the day, the appeal of starting something wholly new, where we could make decisions and have influence from the beginning, won the day.
“It’s not impossible to accomplish this within an established institution,” he says, “but it is harder. What we are doing is riskier but potentially more rewarding.”
No matter how the paper spins the loss of Harris, VandeHei, and von Drehle, plus Edsall and Liebovich, it seems clear that the Washington Post is no longer the preeminent source of political news in Washington. The L.A. Times and the Wall Street Journal have strong political teams. USA Today can depend on Susan Page, long time bureau chief; Kathy Kiely and Andrea Stone covering Congress; David Jackson on the White House; Jill Lawrence for national politics; and investigative reporter Pete Eisler.
In their memo announcing the defection of Harris and VandeHei, Post executive editor Len Downie and managing editor Phil Bennett ended by professing a desire to “increase the number of readers for whom The Post is the essential guide to American politics.”
Given the paper's losses this year, the essential guide is now the New York Times.
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