DAVID S. HOLLOWAY/GETTY IMAGES FOR TURNER
INSIDE
THE CULT
Politico reporters and editors
either immediately declined to
comment or asked to speak “off
the record” for this story. Many
other sources spoke to Huffington
on the condition of anonymity, including more than a dozen current
and former Politico staffers.
Harris and VandeHei worry
about Politico’s future with a
post-Depression sense of paranoia. Even when times are flush,
there’s a gnawing fear that the
bottom could drop out at any moment. While the two newspaper
veterans can seem preoccupied
with being viewed on the same
level as, say, the Times and Post,
both express concerns about Politico getting weighed down by
the baggage and bureaucracy of
legacy news outlets and, in effect,
becoming traditional.
“There is nothing that animated our thinking in the beginning,
and nothing that animates our
thinking more today, than a fear
of being complacent, of becoming
conventional,” says VandeHei. “If
we’re complacent, conventional,
we’re dead.”
“And so you’re not going to meet
two people who obsess about that
more than John and me,” he continues. “That’s all we think about.
How do you continue to keep this
place sharp, on the edge, where it
has to be to be successful?”
HUFFINGTON
06.24.12
Jim VandeHei and former CNN president Jon Klein speak
during Time Warner’s 2008 Political Conference.
CONVERSATION DRIVERS
VandeHei, 41, dressed in dark
jeans and a black blazer, at times
seems more like a coach than an
editor, doling out sports metaphors and riding his players to
move faster, to crush the competition. Skipping pleasantries, he
sometimes paces the newsroom
asking reporters whether they’re
breaking news today.
Harris, seven years older and
a bit stockier, plays the part of