What Politico’s implosion tells us about the media business

[Commentary] Politico, the media company that revolutionized the speed and tone in which politics was covered over the past decade, is no more. Yes, the company will continue on. But what it will be is something very different than what it was when it launched in early 2007 -- or even what it is today. That's because of the news that broke Jan 28: All but one of the key players in the organization's senior management will leave -- either immediately or at the end of the 2016 election. The rise and fall (or at least pending reinvention) of Politico is a fascinating window into the current media world -- and just how hard it is to build a financial success in such a crowded marketplace.

What Politico was (a hyper-metabolized political report that treated campaigns and Congress as a giant game involving some of the most powerful, important and self-important people in the world) and what it evolved into (a site that relied heavily on wonky, policy focused, subscriber-only content) is the story, in a lot of ways, of what happens when journalistic ambition meets business reality. We need Politico -- and every other journalistic enterprise -- to keep trying to tackle the problem of profitability (or lack thereof) in the media business. Politico's trajectory to date, however, provides a cautionary tale of the difference between succeeding as a journalistic endeavor and succeeding as a business venture. We would all do well to heed it.