Politico, the Virginia-based media organization, launched subscription-based Politico Pro in 2011. In the intervening years, the federal government has increasingly come to rely upon Politico Pro as the go-to publication to keep abreast of information and developments relating to a wide spectrum of policy and politics.
In fiscal year 2011, federal government contracts with Capitol News Company, the owner of Politico, totaled $41,900. In fiscal year 2014, twenty-eight contracts were signed with sixteen departments or agencies totaling $431,800, as THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported last year.
The last complete fiscal year, 2015, eighteen departments or agencies signed 50 different agreements for a grand total of $710,044, a 64 percent increase over 2014. This fiscal year, 2016 (beginning in October 2015), the total so far is $271,000. The graph below illustrates the growing federal appetite for Politico’s services:
In 2015, the largest single agreement was with the Department of Energy for $70,540. The DOE acquired 75 multi-user agreement licenses to Politico Pro. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a division of the Treasury Department, paid $60,000 for Politico Pro, but no detail was provided.
Overall, however, the Department of Health and Human Services through its various subdivisions contracted for over $144,000 in that single twelve month span. Even the Executive Office of the President got in on the act, spending almost $23,000 for the subscription service.
By contrast, the Washington Post received over $600,000 in contracts in 2008. By 2011, this had fallen to $215,000. For fiscal 2015, government records actually show a credit of $3,523 due from the Post. The graph runs in the opposite direction of Politico:
The New York Times shows a similar drop off, going from $97,000 in 2010 to zero in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
When asked about possible conflicts of interest that might arise from reporting on government agencies that are also clients, Brad Dayspring, vice President of communications for Politico, responded, “Our editorial staff pursues news stories completely independent of the sales process — there is no interaction between the business team executing sales of the Pro service and the editorial teams gathering the news.” Dayspring also noted that “federal business is a small fraction of the Pro business” and that Politico is “proud of the fact that each year more federal agencies” make use of Politico‘s products.
