Politico, the inside-the-Beltway news site so many love to hate, is now a billion-dollar company. This morning, after weeks of rumors, the German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE announced it was buying the whole operation for what appears to be something north of that magical 10-digit number.
Politico (née The Politico, bub) debuted in early 2007 in what was a very early version of the digital news world we know today. (Facebook had just opened up to non-college users; “twttr” had just spent the domain-name cash to become Twitter.) In the years since, it’s evolved from brash upstart to mainstream news source to an excellent way to separate lobbyists from their money. It’s been hailed as a rare digital news success story and slammed as everything that’s wrong with digital news (and political journalism writ large).