Voilà un exemple intéressant qui devrait inspirer la communauté des journalistes qui s'inquiète ou pire, ne verrait rien venir...Mike Allen, a reporter who covers the White House for Time magazine, and Roger Simon, the chief political correspondent for Bloomberg News, are joining the new multimedia political news venture being overseen by two former Washington Post journalists.
That new enterprise now has a name — The Politico, which is its newspaper, and thepolitico.com, its Web site. The name supplants The Capitol Leader, which had been its working title until it broadened in scope.
Both the newspaper and Web site are to begin publication on Jan. 23, the date of the president’s State of the Union address, one of the most-covered rituals on the Washington political calendar. In addition to writing about Congress, The Politico will focus on the 2008 presidential campaign.
The moves by Mr. Allen, 42, and Mr. Simon, 58, mark another step by traditional “old media” journalists toward a “new media” venture that is largely online, although both are writing or have written for the Web, and Mr. Allen will stay in Time magazine’s print version with a new column about the White House. The Politico is being financed by the deep pockets of Allbritton Communications and overseen by John Harris, the former political editor of The Washington Post, and Jim VandeHei, a former national political reporter for The Post.
Mr. VandeHei said that although The Politico is entering a field crowded with sources of political news, it will try to distinguish itself by hiring a half-dozen reporters who have established reputations, as well as about 15 or 20 energetic journalists in their 20s and 30s who are building their careers and are eager to break news.
“What we can add is fact-based content, and that’s what people on opinion pages and blogs feed off of,” he said. He said Politico reporters would travel on campaign planes, write with a conversational tone, send back video and tell readers things that traditional reporters tend to talk about but not to write about. The staff will also make appearances on CBS News.
Mr. VandeHei said that Mr. Allen was essentially the “prototype” for the sort of journalist The Politico is seeking. “He’s embraced the Web, he’s embraced technology, he goes on television and he breaks news,” Mr. VandeHei said. “That’s where journalism is headed.”
Mr. Allen is leaving a magazine whose print circulation is declining, but which still has more than 3.2 million paying weekly subscribers and a total weekly readership — including passed-along copies — of more than 19 million. The magazine has also invested heavily in its Web site, time.com, which has 3.9 million unique monthly users.
Mr. Allen, who joined Time in August 2005 from The Washington Post, will become The Politico’s chief political correspondent. He said in an e-mail that Time was “the world’s most essential magazine” but that The Politico was the first time that “a political newspaper and Web site will have the same DNA.”
Mr. Simon, chief political correspondent for Bloomberg, the financial news service, will become a political columnist. He said that he perceived Allbritton as having a good business plan, and while there was some risk involved in a startup, “this venture is as secure as any media venture out there and more secure than some.” He also said that life should not be only about avoiding risk but having fun. “We won’t re-invent the wheel,” he said, “we’ll just do it better.”
(NewYorkTimes)
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