If you are a true political junkie – if you know the Obamas have chosen a Portuguese water dog for their
children and that Rush Limbaugh has cut a commercial rooting for a failed presidency – chances are you subscribe to the endless feeds coming out of Politico.
If not, a little explanation is in order. Politico is both a newspaper and a Web site, aimed almost exclusively at inside-the-beltway inside baseball. The organization has hired some of Washington’s best journalists and counts some impressive scoops in recent months, including the fact that John McCain didn’t know how many houses he owned and that Obama had visited the home of one-time terrorist Bill Ayers. It is also crass, unfiltered and sometimes plain wrong.
I think there are both lessons in the operation’s success and evidence of the kind of information corrosion we should avoid.
In a memo to staff, editors told Politico reporters to ask themselves a series of questions:
- Would this be a “most e-mailed” story?
- Would I read this story if I hadn’t written it?
- Would my mother read this story?
- Will a blogger be inspired to post on this story?
- Might an investor buy or sell a stock based on this story?
- Would a specialist learn something from this story?
- Will my competitors be forced to follow this?…
Now, most of those questions shouldn’t be new to any print journalist. We should all be asking ourselves if our audience would be interested in what we are writing. We want to deliver something new, something that our competitors would be forced to follow. That’s just old-school journalism. The memo goes on to entreat writers, “If your friends or source are buzzing about something related in any way to public affairs, don’t ask yourself WHETHER it’s a Politico story. Ask yourself HOW you can make it a Politico story …” I think that is a fine point for all of us. If you hear it at the café, it may well be something that needs a place in your newspaper.
But I am concerned by the notion that reporters should be overly mindful of “most-e-mailed” lists and inspiring bloggers. Charitably, I think the editors meant that even the old-fashioned public affairs journalism that can be hard to swallow has a place in the Internet world so long as it’s made palatable. Don’t focus on the council vote, but rather what it means to the reader. I hope that is what they mean by turning a story into a Politico story.
One final point: If Politico succeeds (It was a must-read during the campaign season but it’s traffic is down double-digits since the election) it will do so because it found a niche, it empowered reporters to think out of the box and it is absolutely relentless about continually updating the news. I think those are the lessons for us. Know your audience. Take risks. And keep on top of your Web site.
– Clay
