Journalists Trash Blogs, Rush To Create Their Own

Back when weblogs came to the forefront a couple years back, notably when bloggers demolished the phony Dan Rather/Mary Mapes hitpiece on George W. Bush, we were told blogs were beneath the titans of the journalistic world, as they didn't have the proper filters and nuance with which to report the news.

Well, that was then. With newspaper circulation plummeting and viewers abandoning television news in droves, some of these hacks have decided they want in.

The moves by Mr. Allen, 42, and Mr. Simon, 58, mark another step by traditional “old media” journalists toward a “new media” venture that is largely online, although both are writing or have written for the Web, and Mr. Allen will stay in Time magazine’s print version with a new column about the White House. The Politico is being financed by the deep pockets of Allbritton Communications and overseen by John Harris, the former political editor of The Washington Post, and Jim VandeHei, a former national political reporter for The Post.

Mr. VandeHei said that although The Politico is entering a field crowded with sources of political news, it will try to distinguish itself by hiring a half-dozen reporters who have established reputations, as well as about 15 or 20 energetic journalists in their 20s and 30s who are building their careers and are eager to break news.

“What we can add is fact-based content, and that’s what people on opinion pages and blogs feed off of,” he said. He said Politico reporters would travel on campaign planes, write with a conversational tone, send back video and tell readers things that traditional reporters tend to talk about but not to write about. The staff will also make appearances on CBS News.

If they had been delivering "fact-based content" all along, their organizations wouldn't be such failures.