Politico launches on Capitol Hill
David Johnson January 23rd, 2007
For weeks, beltway journos have been buzzing about the launch of The Politico, which hit the streets, the airwaves and the Internet this morning. With a slew of players and platforms, the intersection between politics and media is starting to resemble the Springfield Interchange. More after the screen grab…
At first the buzz centered around the name (originally “The Politico” was “The Capitol Leader”). Then it was around all the money that Allbritton was splashing around to snag editorial aces like John Harris and Jim Vanderhei from the Washington Post’s political bullpen as well as looting staffers from congressional rags Roll Call and The Hill. Today the buzz is the buzz itself. Hawkers are on the streets pushing print copies into commuters hands (the cover price on the thrice weekly tabloid is a jaw-dropping $3.50) and Politico staffers are showing up all over the radio and television dial.
Online M.E. and Associate Publisher Dan Kunitz has had typical first day 404s, and from the error pages we’ve learned that he’s got Cold Fusion and Apache running on Fedora behind the site. While it forgoes Safran’s telltale shiny graphic treatments and sticks with oldschool caricatures, the site is chock full of what could grow into Web 2.0 features.
Meanwhile, WaPost preemptively launched a redesigned politics section just a few days ago, leveraging the power of their almost legendary journoprogrammer Adrian Holovaty and his mad database mojo. When it comes to social networking, don’t forget about HotSoup, the political community site that snagged veteran AP politics scribe Ron Fournier last year. And of course, quite a few elements of the blogosphere, like redstate.com, are growing up, fast.
The field is crowded, but if social media and hyperlocal are more than just buzzwords, with half of Americans getting their political fix online and the candidates themselves more than happy to give it to them where they want it, this is shaping up to be a very interesting run towards 2008.
7 Comments Add your own
1. Joe | January 23rd, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Has there been any promotion on Albritton stations (WJLA, NewsChannel 8, KATV)?
2. discreet_chaos | January 23rd, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Thanks for the links. I’ll have to check them out.
And, I would’ve coded-in a Google Map overview of the “Big I” (Interchange) in Albuquerque, but the thing apparently doesn’t like equal signs in the url.
Again, thanks.
3. Patrick B | January 23rd, 2007 at 8:47 pm
I’m always glad to see the launch of any online media effort, especially with the street cred of the Politico staff. Unfortunately, their Web site’s markup looks like it was puked straight from the mouth of 1998.
The Politico’s HTML is littered with misused elements, and comes close to generating 500 validation errors!
But the worst sin is that they probably don’t realize what they’ve given up in using this mess. A higher search engine ranking, reduced bandwidth costs, faster load times for users, and the ability for disabled users to read their content must not have been priorities.
By reducing their star-studded staff by one, or perhaps even less (someone could work part-time), the Politico could have invested enough into their Web design to produce something far more usable.
Instead they’ve fallen into the Web site wasteland already littered with many other media organizations that don’t realize what’s underneath the words also counts.
4. Everett W. | January 23rd, 2007 at 11:52 pm
From watching WJLA/7, the station has run both news stories (with the usual ownership disclaimers) and extensive advertising for the Politico launch.
5. Mark Moulding | January 24th, 2007 at 4:52 am
The site’s a pretty good read from what I’ve seen so far. But I’m surprised not to see anything at all about the State of the Union above the fold (in fact it’s just a poll and a cartoon below the fold).
Are they delaying that until the print editions hit the streets, by any chance? If so, that’s no way to do things…
6. David Johnson | January 24th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
mark, same surprise here. the print edition hit the streets this morning, and the only state of the union nod was a piece of wild art on the front page of jim webb rehearsing his rebuttal. that suggests that they put the paper to bed early in the afternoon. meanwhile, the washington post blew out their coverage over many pages this morning.
even more surprising to me last night was the absolute lack of online coverage of the state of the union at the politico site (and pretty much everywhere else for that matter). to launch on the day of the speech, which is something like the superbowl of washington press events, and do nothing on the site after all the lipservice given to being a super converged web site that reverse publishes the print edition is giant disappointment. with the a-list that they have in the newsroom, that no one even liveblogged the speech or did online reax and analysis shocks me to no end. so much so, in fact, i may have to do one of my nearly infamous rant posts.
7. lfnmxsxjxt | July 3rd, 2007 at 8:36 am
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