INSIDE
THE CULT
do,” he told Nieman. “If you’re
racing around the Hill trying to
make progress on the policy area
you care about, that’s a really
lousy way of getting information.”
Management won’t give away
potentially lucrative Pro content for free, but editors have
been making moves to further
integrate the two editorial operations and increasingly bring
some of Pro’s policy coverage, often written in a more staid tone,
onto the homepage.
At Politico, the “web lead”
is of paramount importance to
reporters fighting for the site’s
top billing and editors hoping to
shepherd pieces into that highly
coveted slot, a cable news agenda-setter eyed each day by TV
bookers across the networks. Increasingly, Pro stories have occu-
HUFFINGTON
06.24.12
pied that spot. Still, inside Politico, there’s long been a sense
that Harris and VandeHei —
drawn to the day’s hot-button
political controversy of the
moment — are less interested
in policy. Both are quick to
publicly talk up Pro’s importance
to the overall operation, but
staffers doubt that that’s where
their passions reside.
In fact, some at Politico suggest that a Pro-dominated franchise will likely mean that VandeHei and Harris, both more
passionate about national politics, may eventually depart. Harris called such speculation “way
off-base” in an email, and pointed out that Pro will help the company reach its long-term goal.
“We want to be the dominant
politics and policy news organi-