'Insider' Political Journalism Has Outlived Its Usefulness

How can and should the American media cover President Trump? This has been one of the key questions facing journalists since the New York real estate mogul first announced his candidacy back in 2015 — and which of course has taken on increasing urgency as his term in office progresses. Political journalism in Washington was, for nearly a decade before Trump, focused on "insider" scoops: who was working for whom, how much money a campaign had raised, what a candidate's internal polling said about his or her chances in a particular race, etc. That strategy was in large part spearheaded by Politico, a Washington-based news organization that prided itself on being "a needle in the vein of political junkies." (Full disclosure: I worked for Politico for four years.)

But as Ben Smith notes here, that kind of journalism was predicated on the idea that politicians all played (for the most part) by the same set of bipartisan rules. With the rise of Trump, more voters than ever are paying attention to the minute details of American politics — but the stakes are also significantly higher, and the day-to-day happenings of Washington more momentous than they used to be.

The old style of "insider" journalism has next to no defenders in Washington these days, and for good reason; most news organizations, recognizing the Trump era is a new animal entirely, have shifted away from it and toward longer-form, more in-depth reporting. But as Ben writes, it almost makes one a bit nostalgic for the days when scoops about staffers and fundraising numbers were the highest concern on Washington observers' minds: "You almost long for the days when it was a game," one told him.