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Herman Cain

Rieder: What's next for Politico under Glasser?

Rem Rieder
USA TODAY

There's no question Politico has been one of the big success stories of the digital journalism era.

Launched seven years ago, the politics-crazed website quickly made the transition from start-up to Washington institution. With its rapid-fire metabolism, determination to drive the D.C. conversation and no-story-too-small blanket coverage, Politico has long been must reading for anyone who wants to or has to keep up with events consequential and trivial inside the Beltway.

Susan Glasser talks about updates she is making as the new editor of Politico at her office in Arlington, Va.

It covers Washington with an army of nearly 200 journalists, offers a pricey collection of specialized single-topic reports under the umbrella of Politico Proand is partnering with German publisher Axel Springer to launch a European edition.

But there's no standing still in the swiftly evolving digital age. Politico has plenty of imitators and competitors out there. As new editor Susan Glasser takes command, change is in the air.

News has to a great extent became a commodity in today's media landscape. You've got to do something special to stand out, to get news consumers to award their valuable time to you instead of your numerous rivals. That puts a premium on smart analysis and revelatory enterprise reporting.

"There's tons of coverage, but it's sliced and diced ever thinner," Glasser, who was named to the job last month, said recently during an interview at her Politico office. "You've got to come back with big, ambitious storytelling."

She said, "Indispensability and original reporting are the engines that will fuel growth. It's important to emphasize original reporting and insight and analysis no one else is doing."

Glasser hastened to add that Politico does such stories now, and they "are already at the heart of Politico's strength."

Glasser came to Politico a little less than a year ago to launch its six-times-a-year print magazine after stints at the helm of the commentary-laden Outlook section of The Washington Post and Foreign Policy magazine. She's hardly a stranger to long-form and longer-form journalism. She calls herself a "proselytizer" for ambitious reportage and a "big believer" in accountability or watchdog journalism. When we met, she was polishing a piece for the next issue of Politico Magazine, a 10,000-word blockbuster she called the biggest investigative piece Politico has run.

Don't look for Politico to abandon the up-to-the-second saturation coverage that has defined its identity. "The fast metabolism is not going away," Glasser says. "I'm definitely not going to say, 'Let's just write big, long magazine stories.' "

When Politico launched, its aspiration was to be everywhere, to overwhelm. The focus must switch to efficiency, Glasser says, making information more accessible. The Politico website can often seem a jumble in which it's hard to figure out where to turn. To remedy that, the site will relaunch after the midterm elections in November, giving the site its first new homepage since it started.

Glasser, who has been involved in planning the new look, said the idea is to give the site more focus and give prominence both to the best enterprise work and the latest news, with clarity. The goal, she said, is "to give more shape to the overwhelmingness."

Politico has often been criticized for helping to create a climate in which too much attention is paid to ephemera, to the silly Beltway flap du jour, at the expense of serious issues. (It's certainly had plenty of help in that regard from, among others, cable TV.) That level of trivia can be pretty awesome. I couldn't resist asking about my favorite, a Politico jump-the shark moment, when it ran a story on the reaction of failed Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain to the death of disco diva Donna Summer. Really.

"That doesn't naturally spring to mind as the kind of story I'd order up," Glasser replied drily.

Though journalism in the digital era is a demanding, sometimes grueling affair not for the fainthearted, Politico has long had a reputation for a particularly high burnout rate. Glasser said she hasn't encountered that and wondered if it's an outdated notion.

The site also has been depicted as a "boy's club" that isn't particularly hospitable to women. Glasser, noting that Politico has a woman both as its editor and its chief operating officer, replied, "That narrative has no truth to it," but "journalism writ large has a 'boy's club' problem."

When Glasser ran the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call back in the 1990s, one of her hires was a young reporter named Jim VandeHei, who had regularly scooped her publication in an obscure newsletter. VandeHei, a Politico co-founder, is its CEO, and Glasser is clearly excited about being reunited at the ambitious news outlet.

Glasser noted that it's very challenging to manage at a news outlet facing steep challenges. "I'm better on the upside of the opportunity curve than managing decline," she said. "This is a very creative and interesting period for journalism. I'm lucky to be doing it now."

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