POLITICO expands past the Beltway

In the video above, Brian Stelter talks to POLITICO CEO Jim VandeHei about his company’s new media venture, Capital New York.

Politico, which has transformed coverage of Washington, D.C. personalities and policy-making, is now finding out if it can clone itself.

In the three months since acquiring a start-up news website in New York, called Capital, Politico has tripled the site's staff and focused in on three city- and state-size topics: City Hall, state government and the media. At the beginning of December, Capital formally relaunched with a new website design and a preview of a paid subscription service that is modeled after Politico's paid service.

Now Politico owner Allbritton Communications - and many competitors in Washington and New York - are watching to see whether readers and advertisers flock to the Empire State spin-off.

There could be more clones to come. "If it works [in New York], think about all the avenues that would open up for Politico," Jim VandeHei, the new chief executive of both Politico and Capital, said in an interview with CNN. "There's so many other areas that look a lot like New York or look a lot like a state that could be very attractive to Politico, and have a need for journalism."

VandeHei, like any careful CEO, declined to name any. But when asked if he had a third market in mind, he said "we have markets three, four and five in mind." Read more...