POLITICO, the digital powerhouse for political junkies, has announced something that is decidedly old school — launching a print magazine.
Since its inception seven years ago, Politico has become a new media force majeure in the coverage of national politics, by providing short bursts of news and highlighting the issue of the moment.
“We got to the point where we had reached what we had set out to do,” Jim VandeHei, POLITICO’s president, CEO and one of its founders told Rem Rieder of USA Today. It was a case of whether to keep doing it “or try to build new muscles.”
VandeHei says that Politico has “a missing dimension: deeper dive magazine-style journalism, the kind of pieces that take three or four weeks to report and can be 4,000 or 5,000 words long when they are important enough to warrant it.”
A magazine format was part of the concept from the beginning, and the option to add another print outlet — POLITICO also publishes a Capitol Hill tract — came from an editorial, not financial, decision.
Former Washington Post reporter and Editor Susan Glasser will lead the new, six times a year, POLITICO Magazine, USA Today reports. The extra role will certainly keep her busy; Glasser also oversees a daily online magazine, as well as a weekly political roundup of the best of Politico called “The Friday Cover.”
POLITICO Magazine is not the only new idea in the works. In September, Politico owner Robert Allbritton took ownership of the New York City-based website Capital New York, with plans to implement the successful Washington D.C. approach to the Big Apple.
