Melissa Cooke | POLITICO
Announcement from POLITICO’s Global Editor-In-Chief John Harris:
Team,
Events in Washington and around the world — in every national and state center of power that POLITICO covers — are by the day making our reality more clear. The political and policy contests that have shaped and shaken the first weeks of 2025 are not a passing storm. We are in the midst of a decisive historical moment and seem sure to remain there in the years immediately before us.
My conviction that the choices our political leaders are making now will have a long echo comes — above all — from reading the brilliant, agenda-setting work you are producing daily. That work has never been more arresting, and as I survey the competitive landscape, I see no other publication coming close to capturing both the nuance and the historical sweep of this moment as we are. Together, we are delivering the most agenda-setting coverage of the new Congress, our policy teams have been breaking news constantly on DOGE and in the agencies, our relaunched DC Playbook is covering the new administration with insight and flair, and over the last week we were the dominant news-breaking and people-convening outlet at the Munich Security Conference.
The question I have been grappling with for several weeks is how we further harness this momentum. Specifically, how we build the structure in our newsroom to ensure not just that we continue operating at this elite level, but that we use these accomplishments to vault our publication to an even greater level of global reputation, prosperity and impact. To that end, I am announcing today several leadership changes. All of them involve promotions and new responsibilities for people with proven records of success at our publication. All flow directly from my belief that empowering the right leaders in the right ways will enable POLITICO to further seize this singular moment.
*We will make our U.S. report, already strong, even stronger
To achieve this objective, Alex Burns will take on a new mandate as senior executive editor. His assignment is to lead POLITICO’s editorial staff and drive our news report across all platforms in North America. Alex will ensure our report remains urgent, revelatory, authoritative and stylish — in other words, delivering all the signatures that make POLITICO journalism distinctive.
This gives Alex the same mandate and title that Kate Day has in Europe. When we announced Kate’s promotion last fall, Goli and I wrote that Kate is full of “intelligence, imagination, and idealism.” In only a few months on the job, Kate has delivered on all three. Just this week, Kate unveiled her plan to double down on our dominance of Brussels with a roadmap filled with confidence, determination, and inspiration.
In both Europe and the U.S., the demands of capturing history on the run and setting the agenda for our audience have rarely been more formidable. In Alex and Kate, we have leaders who count as among the most talented editors of their generation — devoting their professional lives to lifting this publication and the people who report to them to the highest levels of achievement.
Alex will soon be joined in his new assignment by Julia Marsh, who will be transitioning to Washington from Sacramento this spring to be deputy executive editor. There is for me a nice symmetry to this. I have known Alex has something special — with a mind and idealistic ambition like few others — since he first arrived here in the spring of 2008, when our publication was only a year old. In the case of Julia, who I have come to know more recently, I have seen her special gifts in action abundantly over the past couple years — as she has helped lead the California team to one of the most successful expansion efforts in POLITICO history. Julia’s move is only possible because of our confidence that the team she built is strong enough to keep this expansion on an upward trajectory.
Alex is right for this new role in part because of his success since early 2023 in identifying and inspiring a large number of rising talents within POLITICO. Among those journalists are two trusted leaders taking on new assignments: Grace Maalouf and David Kihara, who will oversee a bolstered and expanded central news operation as North American head of news and deputy head of news, respectively. Sudeep Reddy, Elizabeth Ralph and Ryan Hutchins will remain in their vitally important leadership roles and report to Alex: Sudeep managing our North American policy operation, Elizabeth editing POLITICO Magazine and Ryan overseeing the states beyond California.
All these people represent the essential magic of this place: The magnetic pull this publication exerts on this generation’s most talented journalists.
*Our work must continue to meet impeccable journalistic standards
I am asking Anita Kumar to take on a new assignment, spanning both sides of the Atlantic, as the publication’s head of standards and practices. This is a significant expansion of a role Anita has played in the United States, and there is evidence all around us of why it is essential.
Simply put, it is our duty in this historic moment to defend and vindicate our highest professional values. We believe in journalism that is fair, fearless, and fact-based — and commands wide respect even in a highly polarized age. As all of you know, producing such journalism requires clear and consistent standards — across every POLITICO platform and in every geographic arena — that can guide both our journalists and our readers through the most challenging stories and circumstances.
In the 17 months since I have been in my new role, Anita has earned my trust as the perfect person to help us continue achieving this consistency. Her judgment is superb, and her aim is always to “get to yes” — to publish the best and most responsible version of a story.
*We must innovate even more creatively and more swiftly
This may be the most urgent task of all. It does not matter how strong our reporting and writing are if the newsroom’s work is not reaching the right audience in a way tightly aligned to a sound publishing strategy. Doing this well over 18 years is how POLITICO achieved its current success. As I assess the competitive landscape, and even more the onrush of new technology, it’s clear we must never become complacent, and instead push ourselves to do even better, if we are to keep winning in the future.
That’s why I am promoting Joe Schatz to a new position of deputy editor in chief. Over nearly a decade, whenever I have faced a challenging assignment, I have invariably turned to Joe. His intelligence, perceptiveness, decency and steady judgment are known to everyone who has worked with him across the publication. What is known to a smaller group is how deeply POLITICO’s editorial and business strength reflects his singular contribution. Eight years ago, POLITICO’s then-owner made a decision to shut down the states operation, which was then suffering from steep losses and a blurred strategy. I reversed that decision only by pleading for a chance to let Joe and me reverse the setbacks. The subsequent strong performance of the states — now a key part of the publication’s strategy — flows directly from his leadership and superb ability to spot opportunities and organize colleagues toward a common goal.
This is precisely what we need now on several fronts. The most important, here and in Europe, is driving forward with continuous innovation of our offerings to Pro subscribers. Joe will be working with Kate, Alex, Sudeep, Francesca Barber, Joanna Roberts, Clea Benson, Cy Zaneski, Luiza Savage, Zach Warmbrodt and others on this publication-defining assignment.
There is a lot to digest in these moves alone and each one of them naturally raises lots of follow-on questions. To answer those and provide some further narration I am attaching a description of our new organizational structure, and we will be arranging numerous opportunities in setting large and small for the leadership team and I to answer your questions in the days ahead.
I would close by noting that I have been around newsrooms for a good long time now. I have been fortunate in my 18 years at POLITICO to have locked arms with deeply talented journalists on every beat and at every level. But never before have I been surrounded by a newsroom with the sterling combination of intelligence, ambition, and character. This place is going to cover history, and make it, in the days ahead.
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