The Front Page, the great comedy about frenetic journalism in the 1920s, has more in common with the metabolism and style of Politico and Axios than with their place in our latter-day assessments of the perilous state of the news business.
From the founding of Politico in 2007 and, a decade later, its offspring Axios, the core of coverage has been streams of exclusives, polls, tips, and trends digitally delivered wherever the recipient happens to be. This outpouring of short takes has shown enough outreach to establish the enterprises as moneymakers, akin to the tabloid dailies of the past.
They were started by a handful of old-school reporters with instincts for urgency that the internet enabled and, in both cases, with associates who had or devised the means to make them businesses of scale and value. In 2021, the German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE paid more than $1 billion for Politico. In 2022, the Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises paid $525 million for a majority share of Axios.
In 2006 or so, Jim VandeHei, John Harris, and Mike Allen, political reporters at the Washington Post, sensed that the upcoming presidential election cycle would have a different news rhythm than newspapers, magazines and broadcast media had reflected in the past. No one really knew what that meant, except that the political and media classes wanted more news, faster, and in more exciting ways than what they were getting.
And significantly, there were big names — corporations like Starbucks and Boeing, defense manufacturers, lobbyists, and enterprises of all kinds — that were determined to reach people who wanted what they were selling and would pay for access to them. The management of the Post and other legacy news organizations were reeling from the ongoing, irreversible collapse of the print model of display and classified advertising, and their misunderstanding that consumers expected news to be essentially free or low-cost.
(A pause here to explain Bloomberg News, founded in 1990. Because it is a vast multimedia enterprise delivering news and financial data to its principal audience of Bloomberg Terminal subscribers, it has lower visibility in the general public than it deserves based on its quality.)
The idea that reporters, no matter how intrepid, had the savvy to invent a news organization that could pay for itself defied logic, especially when traditional profits were disappearing and such mainstays as the Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times were in growing trouble. And the truth is, in the maelstrom of deals, regulations, and technical upheaval, no one had a grasp of what was underway.
The Allbritton Communications Company in Arlington, Virginia, was flush from the ownership of television stations and the emerging and lucrative cable television systems for which viewers were paying as additions to broadcast. Allbritton knew that it could get behind a start-up like Politico at relatively low risk because it had the infrastructure — the offices, the personnel services, and the cash flow — that would not impair existing businesses. Initially, Politico also featured advertising in a print edition that was distributed gratis while Congress was in session. It later added specialized newsletters, providing the sort of insider information that could be packaged and sold at premium prices.
And that is where Politico has made its mark. VandeHei, Harris, and Allen were indefatigable reporters, and they attracted a generation of young men and women inspired by the metabolism of scoops and instantly available breaking news that the bottom line came to show could be profitable.
What started as a niche political news outlet turned out to have enough mass appeal in the spirit of Front Page dynamism to reshape the zeitgeist. The approach was memorably defined in a New York Times Magazine cover profile of Mike Allen in 2010 called “The Man the White House Wakes Up To” by Mark Leibovich:
“Sometime between 5:30 and 8:30 a.m., seven days a week, [Allen] hits “send” on a mass e-mail newsletter that some of America’s most influential people will read before they say a word to their spouses.
“Allen’s e-mail tipsheet, Playbook, has become the principal early-morning document for an elite set of political and news-media thrivers and strivers. Playbook is an insider’s hodgepodge of predawn news, talking-point previews,…random sightings (“spotted”) around town and inside jokes. It is, in essence, Allen’s morning distillation of the Nation’s Business.”
In 2024, those free daily Playbooks are still a singular Politico franchise, but the organization is now an established — even “establishment” — digital enterprise that specializes in political news and also posts longer relevant pieces and profiles. Its topical Politico Pro newsletters are the main moneymakers. Are they worth the tab? I don’t know, but those paying large sums for them must think so.
Politico’s progeny and its style are deeply embedded in the media. Most significantly perhaps, every news outlet of consequence in Washington — that means the Times, the Post, the Wall Street Journal, even The New Yorker — has staffers carrying Politico, proudly, on their resumes.
John Harris is still the editor-in-chief, but VandeHei and Allen and another of the early Politico group, Roy Schwartz, spun off in 2016 to start something called Axios (the Greek word for worthy). It features what it calls “Smart Brevity,” which means that every piece is tightly framed with bullets stating the facts, the meaning of them, and where to go for more, all in a few hundred words.
Axios could not be clearer in its business objective. A tab on its website titled “How We Make Money” lists these revenue sources: advertising partnerships, sponsored events, subscription-based newsletters that “offer analysis and exclusive reporting for specific industries,” memberships (solicited donations), and postings for jobs and upcoming events.
There is also Axios Local, which seeks to “bring smart local news to every community in America.” These are small teams that aggregate and compile local news and are funded by the same sources as the parent company.
Schwartz, whose background is brand consulting and marketing gave me thirty crisp minutes sharing strategies that I understood to be like “business-to-business” instead of “business-to-consumer” advertising, the goal of attracting “hard-to-reach” “influencer” audiences with information they want, need, and can monetize.
This is news designed and delivered as a commodity.
So, what then are Politico and Axios? They are twenty-first-century, internet-based organizations that have evolved from time-honored traditions of “get your latest news…hot off what used to be called the presses” and to serve society’s demands — but not, it has to be said, society’s soul or the protection of democracy, the issue at play in 2024.
That role is left to the nonprofits, if they can figure out how to pay for it.
Next week: What is to be done?
