Politico's Power Play

**Jonathan Greenberger** (0:02)
I don't make this distinction between a B2B and a B2C business. I think of us as doing one thing, right, which is serving professionals, right, serving that audience that I described earlier, people who hold power in these key democratic capitals around the world and those who interact with those who hold power.

**Dylan Byers** (0:21)
Hello friends and welcome back to The Grill Room. It is Tuesday, August 11th. My guest today is Jonathan Greenberger, the Editor-in-Chief of Politico.
Jonathan, who many of you may know, came up at ABC News. He was the youngest ever executive producer of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He then became the Bureau Chief in Washington before being hired by Politico two years ago to serve as Executive Vice President overseeing strategy and operations.
His appointment to Editor-in-Chief, just 100 days ago, was an unconventional choice. Jonathan had had his head in the business side of Politico, and I think what it reflected on the part of Axel Springer, the parent company, was a desire to broaden the aperture for what Politico's business could be. Jonathan now is thinking about how to grow and expand Politico's various franchises, and most notably thinking about the strength of its consumer business. Those of you who have followed Politico's story know that when it was founded back in the aughts, it quickly captured the zeitgeist and sort of redefined what political journalism could be. Those, of course, were the days of Mike Allen, Jonathan Martin, Ben Smith, Maggie Haberman. And since then, it has gone through various iterations, some strong, some weak. And so there are a lot of questions now. Well, Politico's B2B business, its pro-business continues to thrive. A lot of questions about the consumer-facing side of the company, which is part of Jonathan's mandate. So I wanted to talk about all of that with him. I want to talk about what's working. I also want to talk about what his background in television, how that informs how he thinks about his new role at Politico. There's obviously an interest in expanding franchises. You're going to hear Jonathan talk a lot about the necessity of being multi-platform. Obviously, that is very du jour. So fascinating conversation with Jonathan. I think you will learn a lot about Politico's business today and about where it's going. And without further ado, let's get started.
Jonathan, welcome to The Grill Room.

**Jonathan Greenberger** (2:45)
Thank you. It's great to be here.

**Dylan Byers** (2:47)
It's live and in the flesh.

**Jonathan Greenberger** (2:48)
Live and in person here in LA.

**Dylan Byers** (2:50)
This is so rare. We're so rarely in the studio with the people I talk to.

**Jonathan Greenberger** (2:53)
Well, I'm up in Sacramento tomorrow. We got a big event going on up there. Thank you for the love that you gave that event in the newsletter.

**Dylan Byers** (2:59)
I think anytime you can get Rob Bonta and Macon Delrahim on the same stage, that's fireworks for me. So congrats on that.

**Jonathan Greenberger** (3:07)
We're looking forward to it.

**Dylan Byers** (3:09)
Okay, so let's talk about Politico. You have been in the job now for 101 days.

**Jonathan Greenberger** (3:15)
That's right.

**Dylan Byers** (3:15)
There's something around that.
Why did you get this job? Because your history, which will be known to most folks listening, you came up through ABC, through the political unit, eventually became the youngest ever producer, executive producer of This Week, and then Washington Bureau Chief. And then you joined Politico about two years ago in a role, executive vice president, which to me reads like a business role, right? Operations, et cetera. In my head, that's a track toward becoming CEO of the company one day. Instead, you get named editor-in-chief. What is the thinking and the rationale there?

**Jonathan Greenberger** (3:51)
Sure. You mentioned my track record. I'm a journalist at my court, right? For 20 years now, I wake up in the morning saying, what story can we tell our audience that they don't know?
How can we help our audience navigate this disrupted world in a way that others cannot? In television, we thought about doing that for the broadest possible audience, right? We were a broadcaster, emphasis on the word broad. It was all about scale. Came over to Politico. Fundamentally, it's the same thing, right? Journalism is journalism. We have a different audience, right? We go after, we serve the most powerful people in all of the hubs that we serve. So, look, I came over to kind of sit at that intersection, right? Of how are we growing the publication? How are we growing our impact? How are we growing the ways that we serve that audience? How are we thinking about doing that in a sustainable way? That's the role I came over for. And now, as editor-in-chief, I get to talk to all of our 550 journalists around the world and help them advance that mission.