How the rise of Politico shifted political journalism off course

Politico largely embraced those prevailing orthodoxies of political journalism, particularly in its early days — it was Beltway-focused, obsessed with not offending Republican readers, sometimes resembled sports coverage and its leading reporters were nearly all White. It was in many ways just a faster, more interesting version of how politics had long been covered. And that really worked. Politico became very influential, particularly among people involved in politics, as well as among political journalists and editors who didn’t work at Politico. For more than a decade, not only did Politico keep gaining strength, but the entire political media became more like Politico. Editors rushed to hire staffers from the Northern Virginia-based outlet. They also pressed their existing staffers to cover politics the way Politico did — more scoops, more insider gossip, a faster pace.