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Amid the drumbeat of stories describing the collapse of print journalism, this political season has produced a host of thriving Web sites specializing in political reporting, gaining readers at rates far exceeding the loss in readers of newspapers.

The success of online journalism demonstrates the growing demand for political information—a demand that is likely to produce new delivery systems requiring increasing numbers of reporters and editors. Without the immense capital and operating costs of traditional print and television newsgathering, such Web sites as Politico.com, RealClearPolitics.com and TheHuffingtonPost.com have seen the number of unique monthly viewers triple or quadruple since the election began in earnest with the Iowa and New Hampshire contests in January.

All of these new online media sites are hiring reporters and editors, and each is providing a variation on the kind of approach that is likely to work to keep independent journalism alive and well.

Politico is in many ways closest to the traditional political reporting model, with all of its stories staff-written. It has become not only a go-to site for political aficionados of all stripes, but its readership is growing geometrically.

TalkingPointsMemo.com (TPM) and its founder, Joshua Micah Marshall, have won recognition—and a George Polk Award—for investigative reporting. TPM has been a pioneer in making use of readers as sources, and the site has created, in the jargon of the Web, a "community," with such sites as TPMMuckraker, TPMElection Central, TPMtv and TPMCafé. It, too, is having a banner year.

Another model is RealClearPolitics, a news aggregator providing links to a broad range of political stories, commentary and poll data. The site also employs a small number of in-house reporters who produce enterprise and analytical material. In addition to the politics site, there are the news services: RealClearSports, RealClearMarkets and RealClearWorld.

There is, of course, the Web site where I work as the political editor, TheHuffingtonPost. It has been, to date, the most successful political Web site and recently beat out the Drudge Report. Statsaholic shows a 415.1 percent growth rate over the past year and a people count—i.e., unique visitors per month—of 3,067,159.

TheHuffingtonPost most closely approximates a traditional national paper. Its site now has sections offering coverage of national and international news, politics, business, entertainment, media, living, style and humor provided by paid staff in Washington, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, by a large roster of bloggers and aggregated from other publications. Books and sports sections are scheduled to appear shortly. The site has also created an army of "citizen journalists" equipped with tape and video recorders who have already broken a number of stories that have gotten major play in the mainstream media.

TheHuffingtonPost is also planning a network of sites in major cities throughout the United States aimed at covering local news and intended to compete with regional newspapers. The first such site is making its debut in Chicago this August.

Out of these and myriad other endeavors, one or more profitable business models of national and global Internet-based media production is likely to emerge to fill what clearly is a huge international appetite for content—that is, what we call news.

 

Edsall is the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism.

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