INSIDE
THE CULT
deHarris protégé, had won out
(Mahtesian and Burns declined
to comment).
Harris says he has simply freed
Mahtesian from day-to-day editing duties so he can write more
for the site. “We know we have
this genius, this rain man of politics in our midst, and we were
not getting his insights onto the
site often enough,” Harris says,
adding that Mahtesian is “the
smartest guy in Washington
when it comes to politics.”
Every newsroom can be a cauldron of personality conflicts, staff
rivalries and heated spats between reporters and editors but
Politico has still gained a
reputation over the years as a
stressful, hamster wheel environment, where expectations
aren’t just about staying late to
cover breaking news — as any
Politico reporter would do — but
essentially being on call, nights
and weekends, for even the most
granular piece of political news.
Politico staffers routinely talk
of a Politico “star-system” in
which a handful of reporters in
the VandeHarris orbit receive
preferential treatment from company leadership, while the majority are left drifting in a far off journalistic galaxy. One former staffer
likens the newsroom to The Hunger Games, in which young people
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fight to the death for the enjoyment of a privileged class.
Last fall, a plagiarism scandal
involving a young Politico reporter
who had been churning out transportation policy stories for Pro led
to several damage control meetings involving managers and staff.
In response, Politico set up a mentorship program to help reporters
making their way in its competitive newsroom.
Still, current and former
staffers don’t expect Politico brass to have much
tolerance for complaints
about the workload and
several recall COO Kingsley famously dismissing anonymous grumbling in a 2010 Times
profile of Allen. She
said “people who whine
about working at Politico shouldn’t be at Politico,” and that “they likely lack the metabolism
and professional drive it
takes to thrive here.”
To be sure, Politico offers reporters a platform
read widely in the corridors of
Washington power and a brand
name that will allow even cub reporters to get their calls quickly
returned from Capitol Hill and
the White House. Yet many of
them do burn out. Some staffers