For Journalists, Politics Not as Usual

FOR JOURNALISTS, POLITICS NOT AS USUAL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Katharine Seelye]
As many newspapers across the country are cutting their staffs and trimming back on Washington coverage, The Politico is finding younger journalists and some veterans — including John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei from The Washington Post, Mike Allen from Time magazine and Roger Simon from Bloomberg News — who are willing to leave the once-secure confines of traditional print to join a start-up. If The Politico succeeds, it could signal that the Web has become a more plausible alternative for mainstream journalists. (Most bloggers offer their Web logs free, and rare is the site that pays reporters to create original content.) But there are skeptics who say that the focus of The Politico is too narrow and that the marketplace too crowded with sources of political news, from sites like RealClearPolitics.com to scores of other publications, including newspapers and their Web sites. Partisans, especially, feast on sites that affirm their views; The Politico says it will be nonpartisan. The Politico, financed by Allbritton Communications and based in suburban Washington in a glassy tower that once housed Gannett, has smoothed the transition for print journalists with handsome salaries, though no one is talking exact figures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/business/media/08washington.html
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