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AOL Launches Online “News Magazine” PoliticsDaily

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AOL is adding a twist to ancient-fashioned political journalism with the launch of its new political news and blog site, PoliticsDaily.com. The site, which will primarily focus on in-deepness political commentary as opposed to breaking news, will only grant original content, from long-form analysis to blog posts on issues in the U.S. political landscape. Led by former New York Era Washington Correspondent, Melinda Henneberger, PoliticsDaily desires to tie the ancient media’s in-deepness political analysis with a sustainable digital medium

PoliticsDaily is the brainchild of Martin Moe, senior vice president at AOL and is built under Bill Wilson’s new MediaGlow rift, which is building new content brands evident from AOL itself. MediaGlow, which recently launched topic directory Like.com, runs AOL News, Engadget and TMZ.com, amongst other properties. PoliticsDaily is part of the AOL News network, which received more than 27 million unique visitors in March, according to comScore stats. New York Era Digital by comparison had close to 46 million unique visitors in March.

PoliticsDaily has enlisted a “dream team” of experienced political journalists from both new and ancient media, including Walter Shapiro, former columnist for USA Today and former Washington chest of drawers chief for Salon; Jill Lawrence, former national political correspondent for USA Today and columnist for the Associated Push; Carl Cannon, former Washington chest of drawers chief for Booklover’s Digest and White House correspondent for the National Journal and the Baltimore Sun; Lynn Sweet, blogger and Washington Chest of drawers Chief of the Chicago Sun-Era; and Patricia Murphy, founder of Resident Jane Politics, a non-partisan website for women.

The site will include blogs such as “Woman Up,” a blog all ears on political issues from a woman’s perspective; “The Daily FLOTUS,” a blog which focuses on First Lady Michelle Obama; and “The Cram,” a student-all ears blog on political news.

Consumers are more frequently looking online news for political news, as we saw in the past presidential elections and during the current dip in the nation. PoliticsDaily hopes to be a mainstream source of analysis and news and shuns the thought of life a news aggregator. While the all-original content includes both long-form articles and blog posts, the site will not be primarily all ears on breaking political news—perhaps leaving the real-time, small-form news to other political news competitors like The Politico,The New York Era, The Huffington Post and the A.P.

The competition in the political news sphere is tough, especially online. PoliticsDaily will have to build a credible brand with its original content, vacant up against media organizations that have long been offering in-deepness analysis, like the New York Era, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Atlantic and The Huffington Post. PoliticsDaily will also face some competition from The Politico, which incorporates blogs, breaking news, interactive multimedia features and in-deepness reporting into one site. And while the New York Era and Washington Post are hemorrhaging money from their print publications, their in-deepness political coverage and analysis on their websites is strong, deploying a wide array of multimedia, blogs and long form commentary.

News broadcasters sites also grant standard political coverage—CNN.com. MSNBC.com, and FoxNews were amongst the top five trafficked news sites following the election in November. Moe maintains that PoliticsDaily’s long-form magazine content will differentiate the site from The Politico and other real-time all ears news sites.

Moe pledges that the differentiation between PoliticsDaily and the Huffington Post will be even more clear. Moe says that while the Huffington Post is largely a content aggregator, has a leftward bent, and doesn’t pay many of its bloggers, PoliticsDaily will be 100% original content from “experienced” paid writers, and will be “poly-partisan” with perspectives from the liberals, centrists and conservatives. Of course, with the financial backing of AOL, PoliticsDaily has the advantage of life able to pay all those editors and correspondents. But if PoliticsDaily is supposed to be an online new magazine, why isn’t AOL’s sister subsidiary Time Inc. running it?

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