Eleven high-profile reporters and editors have left the newsroom since March, some apparently chafing at what insiders characterize as a meddlesome or confusing editorial process led by the demanding head of news, Alex Burns. This despite the generally imperiled state of the industry, in which Politico, backed by the German conglomerate Axel Springer, is one of the more stable spots.
Among the runaways are congressional bureau chief Burgess Everett; deputy managing editor for Congress Elana Schor; national security reporters Alex Ward, Lara Seligman, and Erin Banco; top Washington editor Sam Stein; White House bureau chief Jonathan Lemire; Congress reporter Sarah Ferris; and investigative correspondent Heidi Przybyla. Some went to TheWall Street Journal or CNN, while others sought career refuge in smaller operations like The Bulwark and Semafor. Lemire, who in addition to working at Politico was hosting the 5 a.m. hour at MSNBC, is now a permanent Morning Joe co-host. And there are likely more departures to come, with several well-respected staffers, I’m told, in talks with other outlets or signaling their availability.
The frustration is largely around how the newsroom works under its semi-new leadership team, sworn in about a year ago as part of the Axel Springer purchase. Politico co-founder John Harris became global editor-in-chief and set up a triad of leaders under him: head of news Burns, a Harris mentee who basically grew up at Politico and left for the New York Times in 2015 as a reporter, only to be lured back to Rosslyn in 2022; executive editor Joe Schatz; and senior managing editor Anita Kumar. I wrote about this new leadership last year, and eight months later I heard much of the same frustrations in conversations with several Politico insiders, particularly about the top-down editing process involving what staffers describe as aggressive oversight of copy that has slowed the publication of stories.
“The whole revolution of Politico was the way it approached politics as a drama: ‘We’re going to tell you what people are thinking and planning to do, help you understand what’s going to happen,’” says one former Politico staffer. “But they don’t really have that ability anymore, because they’ve tied top talents’ hands behind their back, and then they’ve told their top talent that they suck.”
