Politico.com
The Politico website is now officially up, marking at last the debut of D.C.'s newest heavily-discussed media project. As expected after the Daily News spotted the temporarily-launched stories online yesterday, today's headines include an exclusive interview with presidential hopeful John McCain in which the Senator lambastes Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, calling the latter "one of the worst secretaries of defense in history," and admits that Bush's planned "surge" of 21,500 new U.S. troops into Iraq, a move that McCain has openly supported, may not succeed. The second is a piece detailing freshman Rep. Stephen Cohen's reported "social faux pas," in which the Caucasian Congressman asked for admission to the Congressional Black Caucus after succeeding African American Rep. and former Caucus member Harold Ford. Given prominent placement on the site is Ben Smith's story on Hillary Clinton's aggressive push to woo longtime Clinton allies among the African American business, political and entertainment elite.
One interesting feature is the "Speak To Power" editorial page, in which the editors forgo a traditional editorial forum in favor of opinion submissions from readers. There's also a delve into citizen journalism with "You Report," an offer to all registered Politico members to submit original stories in exchange for $100 and publication in the site's "You Report" section (Congratulations, You! You've done it again!). Prominently displayed on the home page is the day's "Politicos On Air" schedule, including appearances by staffer Anne Schroeder on MSNBC's "Tucker" and Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen on CBS. Plus, of course, there are the blogs, including Schroeder's "Shenanigans," a D.C. gossip site that seems to tread as far as possible from the link-heavy acid-tongue of sites like Wonkette, as well as Patrick O'Connor's "The Crypt," (described by the site as the "eyes and ears of Capitol Hill") and tag team "Smith & Martin" (Note to Smith: It may be time to update the AIM listed on your blog; "benobserver" seems a tad outdated). Attytood notes that, following along with the current media obsession with highlighting balance, the two political discussion blogs ("Talking Points" and "Hugh Hewitt") are tagged as liberal and conservative, respectively. As for edge, there isn't much of it; as Attytood remarks, perhaps the site's edgiest aspect is Schroeder's blogroll, which includes trashfest Perez Hilton, as well as Radar, Jossip and Page Six.
ETP's Prior Coverage of The Politico:
One Day More
Politico Update: Two Weeks To Launch And Still Controversial
