Top reporters leave Politico

The unfolding internal crisis at the Washington Post has obscured drama playing out across the river in Rosslyn, Virginia.

Three high-profile employees plan to leave Politico in the coming weeks: Alex Ward, the co-author of Politico’s massive scoop about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, is leaving for The Wall Street Journal along with fellow Pentagon reporter Lara Seligman. Jack Shafer, the longtime Politico columnist, confirmed to Semafor that he is also leaving amid the company’s waning interest in media coverage.

“I had a really good run with a long leash at Politico and appreciate all the great people I worked with,” Shafer said. “But the job has changed in recent months and I think it’s best for me to hit the ground dancing someplace else where media criticism is important to the mix.”

Earlier this month, Sam Stein, a high-profile Washington editor, left for The Bulwark following publicly reported friction with Politico’s new management. Longtime congressional reporter Burgess Everett also announced last week that he’s leaving the company (This is where media reporting gets messy. Everett is joining Semafor in September; Stein was this reporter’s former editor at Politico in 2022).

The high-profile departures come amid a yearlong transformation of Politico’s newsroom by a new leadership group, which has attempted to refocus the company’s editorial offerings, but has also at times clashed with former employees.

In a series of interviews with Vanity Fair earlier this year, top editor John Harris, head of news Alex Burns, and CEO Goli Sheikholeslami said that the organization had lost its edge, created complacent commodity news, and needed to compete harder with new digital upstarts on Capitol Hill. The leadership team made it clear to employees: Changes needed to be made for Politico to adapt to a turbulent news media environment and increasingly crowded DC media landscape. Part of this has meant an editorial overhaul in which nearly all news stories are read by top editors to ensure consistency with Politico’s new brand. Burns himself has often rewritten individual stories filed by reporters.

Some journalists, in turn, felt that some of the new editorial leaders were too focused on changing the editorial output, slowing down stories and causing journalists to get scooped by competitors. Semafor previously reported friction between Burns and other top editorial leaders. Vanity Fair reported that Stein had disputes with Burns before they left the publication this year. Deputy White House editor Eun Kim similarly left this year following well-known frustrations with the new leadership team. Two people with knowledge of the situation told Semafor that in recent months, the company has fielded complaints about the abrasive treatment of editors by the new upper management.

In an email with Semafor, Harris said he wants Politico’s journalism to be “even more original, more topical, more rigorously edited, and more responsive to our publication’s long-term strategy,” and some reporters may not fit within that strategy.

“These cases you cite involve different circumstances,” he said. “There are journalists I really respect, and I think respect me, but who don’t like some of the changes I have asked for. I want people to find the right home for their work, even if sometimes it is elsewhere. There are also times when competitors occasionally snag people I want with us here. My response to that is to compete even harder tomorrow. We have 600 journalists worldwide who show we are winning that competition way more often than not.”

Two years after its sale to German media giant Axel Springer, Politico’s future is somewhat unclear.

The publication and its paid subscription product has retained a core, dedicated audience. It remains a must-read for congressional aides, bureaucrats, White House officials, and all of the lobbying organizations built to tilt the federal government in their favor. And the company’s new leadership team are far from alone in feeling unsatisfied and alarmed with what it perceives as editorial drift of their news offerings — much of what Burns and Harris told Vanity Fair sounds fairly similar to the changes embattled Washington Post CEO Will Lewis and new Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker have attempted to implement in their D.C. newsrooms.

But many of the stars it cultivated have moved on to other news organizations competing directly against the publication for eyeballs and event dollars. And while it has been less than a year since the new leadership team took the reins, the new regime’s tough-love approach in the newsroom has alienated well-known employees who have left for competitors, effectively working against its plan. Politico’s attempt to recapture the glory days of the 2000s when it disrupted political journalism with speedy blogging and scoops seems to be ironically built on painstakingly rewriting pieces.

The well-documented internal firestorms at the Washington Post and in the Washington, D.C. bureau of The Wall Street Journal should be creating an opening for Politico to retake some turf in D.C. media. But Politico’s own internal drama seems to be hindering the company’s ability to do it.

Part of the tensions within Politico are an attempt to rebalance a newsroom that management felt was unfairly weighted towards certain teams. Politico has felt that it can withstand individual staff losses without a real impact on its Washington, D.C. business. Some reporters at Politico in other policy areas have felt that the new editorial focus has created a more equitable newsroom.

“Politico has shown a remarkable way of regenerating itself,” one staffer with no discernable agenda told Semafor. “These cycles have happened in the past, but it’s a large newsroom. I think it’s still a good place to work.”