Let me be unmistakably clear to you and potential buyers: there is no chance, none, I will sell POLITICO as part of the deal. My future is POLITICO and companies like it. In fact, my plan is to invest even more in POLITICO and to place additional bets on media companies that meet my definition of successful journalistic and business enterprises. POLITICO continues to carry no debt, funds all investment with operating income and will still turn a profit, again, in 2013. That is the textbook definition of a thriving, sustainable new media company.
ACC, a private company, owns stations in Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, South Carolina and Oklahoma. In Washington, D.C., it owns WJLA-TV, an ABC affiliate, as well as a cable news channel. Politico's main newsroom shares space with those operations. (more...)
For a news organization such as Politico to run a piece focused so tightly on Abramson's personality is disappointing. It might have highlighted the fact she has just had the most successful week of her professional life. Her news organization picked up four Pulitzer Prizes, the third highest haul in the Times's history, and the coverage of the Boston bombings was, by wide acknowledgment, exceptionally good, when others were rocky and error-strewn.
Dylan Byers' big "Turbulence at The Times" story, about the news organization under Executive Editor Jill Abramson's leadership, has the look and feel of world-beating Politico scoop.
It mixes anonymously voiced insider accounts with a few protesting on-the-record sources to paint a picture of a newsroom so buffeted by personality conflicts that it just barely won four Pulitzer Prizes and calmly and accurately guided readers through the Boston bombings.
The festering conflict at the heart of all this triumph? Executive Editor Jill Abramson.
In recent months, Abramson has become a source of widespread frustration and anxiety within the Times newsroom. More than a dozen current and former members of the editorial staff, all of whom spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity, described her as stubborn and condescending, saying they found her difficult to work with.
Politico reporter Mike Allen Thursday took issue with a Huffington Post story that said former Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour left the super PAC American Crossroads. Barbour, Peter H. Stone's story said, was "appalled" by the way a Crossroads initiative "was rolled out on the front page of The New York Times in early February by the group's president, Steven Law."
Allen links to the HuffPost story in his enjoyable morning "Playbook" email with the heading "PLAYBOOK LIFE LESSONS - WHY YOU SHOULDN'T GO AHEAD AND POST A STORY WITHOUT TALKING TO THE KEY PERSON, even if they're traveling."
Politico
In a slick video published today on Politico's new advertising site, Politico Executive Editor Jim VandeHei talks about the site's "garage-band" beginnings and why it reaches the "smart set." He also says Politico is a bulwark against partisan journalism:
I truly believe that the future of media, of non-partisan media, is in doubt. I think there are scenarios where there just isn't much of it left. And I feel very passionately that I want to be part of a company that is one of the companies that cracks the code to fund journalism that makes a difference.
I used to work for a publication owned by Allbritton Communications, which owns Politico.
Just as Bob Woodward's "extensive reporting" on the machinations that lead to the budget sequester glosses over the content of the bill, Politico's focus on Sperling's alleged threat toward the famous reporter reflects its editorial fascination with narratives that are perhaps of limited interest to those on the receiving end of unresolved policy debates, debates that give the people who should be solving problems a license to grab popcorn and gawk. Did Sperling mitigate his "threat" by preceding it with the phrase "as a friend"? Is this all a "power hissy"? Will I be able to take my kids camping at a federal park this spring? (No links on that last one, sorry, aggregating Woodward stories.)
PEJ | Ad Age | IAB | Econsultancy
The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism released the results of a significant study today on the state of mobile news consumption in America. Pew found that some people consume more news after acquiring tablets and that getting news is the second most popular activity on tablets behind emailing. It also sheds light on the difference between people who use apps vs. the Web to get their news.
Poynter's Rick Edmonds looks at the business implications: While tablet ownership doubled to 22 percent in the past year, those tablet owners don't want to pay for content and they aren't crazy about advertising either. That leads Rick to conclude that "bundled subscriptions are looking better than ever."
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Nobody's covering members of the media in Tampa this week like Politico reporter Patrick Gavin. He's been tweeting "rules" for covering the convention that, as my boss showed yesterday, most journalists at the RNC are following.
Convention Coverage Rule #18: What's important is not that you're here, but that everybody else knows that you're here.
Politico reporter David Catanese got a whole face-full of blowback this week for a series of tweets defending Republican congressman and Senate candidate Todd Akin’s controversial comments about rape, pregnancy and abortion.
