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From Gabriel Sherman,  all you need to know about Politico:

Privately, Harris and VandeHei also believed traditional journalism was often complacent and self-important, and they wanted to challenge the status quo with brand-name reporter-bloggers who would break news and "explain how Washington really works," as they detailed in one internal memo.

In October 2006, Harris and VandeHei met with Allbritton to outline their plan. Allbritton agreed to bankroll their venture, and, in November, Harris and VandeHei told Post chairman Don Graham and managing editor Phil Bennett what they were doing. The paper had already suffered high-profile defections including style writer Mark Leibovich, Pulitzer Prize-winner Steve Coll, and reporter Hanna Rosin. The Post told the pair they could incubate their Web venture at the Post. But the two had made up their minds, and they weren’t shy about their ambitions. "I think we’ll show that we’re better than The New York Times or The Washington Post," VandeHei told The New York Observer at the time.

True dat…

Politico’s top editors also admonish their staff to tailor their copy for the Web. During one staff meeting this summer, Harris and VandeHei told staffers that no Politico stories should run longer than 1,500 words. "There are no R.W. Apples anymore, and, if R.W. Apple wrote at Politico, all his stuff would be cut in half," one Politico reporter told me in July. (Politico does occasionally run long pieces, such as Roger Simon’s nearly 20,000-word reconstruction of the Democratic race.) Politico reporters also file whenever news breaks. Shortly after 8 a.m. on November 10, while commuting to work, media reporter Michael Calderone learned that msnbc’s Joe Scarborough had just said "fuck" on air. Calderone, who often blogs from the back of taxis and buses, leapt off the crowded Mount Pleasant bus and blogged the YouTube clip from a park bench.

They’re going to need a whole new Pulitzer category…