Huffington Magazine Issue 2 | Page 85

INSIDE THE CULT zation in Washington and Pro’s expansion has allowed us to do that,” Harris says. “Much of what Pro’s doing is aimed at a highly specialized audience. We want some of their work to be aimed at a broader audience of politically sophisticated and really highly engaged people, and the way to do that is through the main site.” Harris adds that Politico editors “want to make sure it’s one newsroom and not two distinct newsrooms.” As for his future amid Politico’s growth, Harris wrote, “at the moment, I’m expecting to stay for as long as I’m welcome.” AN ESPN OF POLITICS? In addition to hiring up policy reporters, Politico’s also now looking for an executive producer for Politico TV. Politico drew attention this spring on several primary nights with its distinctive Politico Live streaming broadcasts, which include such unique elements as a “Mikey Cam” that follows the indefatigable Allen around as HUFFINGTON 06.24.12 he pulls up breaking news on a BlackBerry. C-SPAN also aired several of the broadcasts, thus landing Politico on a national television network. While Politico’s PR team has proven highly adept at getting reporters and editors on air from the start, and TV regulars like Allen, VandeHei and Patrick Gavin are found daily during the “Politico Playbook” segment of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, a regular television component hasn’t come together. Don Ennis, whom Politico hired in late 2007 as an executive producer to help create TV content, says his first conversation with VandeHei included a discussion of becoming the “ESPN of Politics.” Both editors, he said, longed to do something “less traditional” than the usual punditocracy, but couldn’t pin down exactly what that would be. They didn’t want Politico’s TV brand to be over-produced, which seemed inconsistent with emulating ESPN, a network where shows like SportsCenter are tightly structured to let