The Donald’s fifteen minutes may be up
McKay Coppins and Maggie Haberman discuss Coppins’s profile of Donald Trump and why the media continues to give his political flirtations attention.
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...
What we're reading this week...
By Becky Perlow, CNN
'This woman took a selfie in front of a man attempting suicide'
From TMI mirror selfies to basically any Kim Kardashian selfie, cell phone cameras and social media have officially blurred the rules of what's appropriate to share... and what's not. But for one woman in New York, it might have been a case of simply taking a selfie at the wrong time. The New York Post published a picture of the young, blonde woman on the cover of its Monday edition, taking a selfie with a man attempting to commit suicide in the background. Perhaps, however, she didn't notice the suicidal man and was only taking a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge in the background. What do you think?
Bloomberg LP, known for its business-savvy reporting, has tripled its revenues in the 12 years since Michael Bloomberg traded his plushy corporate corner office for the city of New York's mayoral podium, according to Fortune. But while "Bloomberg is on track for record revenues of $8.3 billion in 2013 and profits of about $2.7 billion," the company is battling PR nightmares, including its most recent scandal of censoring its own journalists in China. Check out CNN Money's preview of the story after the jump.
'Can Politico take Manhattan?'
The publication known for inside-the-beltway news is breaking ground in a new city outside of the nation's capital. Politico's parent company recently purchased Capital New York, a small New York-based website, and Politico founder and CEO Jim VandeHei is gearing up for the company's expansion. "When you look at City Hall, when you look at Albany, when you look at media, even when you look at finance, I think there are huge pockets of this city that are under-covered or that could be covered exponentially better," VandeHei told Bloomberg News.
For more on Politico's new venture, tune in later this month for Brian Stelter's interview with VandeHei, and watch for Stelter's debut show this Sunday at 11am ET.
The rebirth of longform journalism
Politico’s new longform editor Susan Glasser and guest host Frank Sesno discuss a resurgence of what was once considered a dying trade – the 5000+ word news article.
MSNBC struggling with politics
Joe Concha joins Howard Kurtz to discuss MSNBC's fall in ratings, as well as Roger Ailes' response to Jonathan Alter's allegations.
What we’re reading this week
By Laura Koran, CNN
Reliable Sources is continuing to focus its critical lens on the media coverage of the Boston bombings. Tune in Sunday for that! Until then, here are some of the other stories that caught our attention this week.
Will Obama go for the punchline? Politicians and Hollywood celebrities will be bumping elbows Saturday night at the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner. The event is usually an opportunity for the president to take a lighter tone, poking fun at his political opponents and folks in the media. But with somber news stories such as the Boston terrorist attack and the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas still dominating the headlines, some are wondering whether the President should skip the comedy routine this year. Striking the proper balance between humor and solemnity could prove a difficult balancing act, as previous presidents have learned.
How news becomes #news: A growing number of people are turning to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook for information in lieu of traditional news sources, perhaps for good reason. When bombs went off near the Boston Marathon finish line last week, the news was on Twitter almost instantly. That case emphasized what many in the news business have already come to accept: that social media sites can be invaluable tools in the collection and dissemination of news. Traditional outlets are taking note, developing strategies to harness the power of social media. In the wake of the Boston bombings, Andrew Springer, senior editor for social media at ABC News and Dean Praetorius, senior editor at The Huffington Post took questions from the blog AllFacebook on how their organizations cultivate a social media presence and use that presence to cover breaking news.
For the inside-the-beltway reader: The release of a new book by New York Times writer Mark Leibovich, which chronicles life in insiders’ DC, is over two months away, but that hasn’t stopped Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei of Politico from speculating about who “should worry most about his book.” The pair (the former of whom was profiled by Leibovich in 2010) started the speculation in an article on Thursday, which has received its own share of criticism from those who say the article is, in itself, a classic example of the Washington self-absorption the book aims to expose.
About "Reliable Sources"
Now more than ever, the press is a part of every story it covers. And CNN's "Reliable Sources" is one of television's only regular programs to examine how journalists do their jobs and how the media affect the stories they cover.
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About the host
Brian Stelter is the host of "Reliable Sources" and the senior media correspondent for CNN Worldwide. Before he joined CNN in November 2013, Stelter was a media reporter for The New York Times. He is the author of the New York Times best-seller "Top of the Morning."
Here's his biography. You can read his stories on this blog and at CNNMoney.com/Media/.
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