Six months ago, with little fanfare, Mathias Döpfner launched his own video podcast. In MDMeets, the statuesque Axel Springer C.E.O. sits down with a political or industrial potentate—former Iranian crown prince Reza Pahlavi, Hungarian P.M. Viktor Orbán, a Sam Altman or Satya Nadella type—for a high-minded volley of “big ideas” that he then posts on YouTube. On some level, it’s the sort of harmless indulgence that journalists turned executives—particularly billionaires who own 20-plus percent of their company—tend to afford themselves once they’ve grown restless in the corner office. Remnick’s Radio Hour and VandeHei’s career-coach missives are subsets of the genre. For Mathias, it’s a chance to scratch the Davos–Milken–Sun Valley itch in the off-weeks.

On another level, however, the project also hints at Mathias’s ambitions for his burgeoning media empire—and might help explain why he recently settled on Jonathan Greenberger, a former ABC News executive producer, as the next global editor-in-chief of his flagship U.S. asset, Politico. Jonathan, who joined the company as executive vice president in 2024, will take over the role from Politico co-founder John Harris on May 1.

In their months-long search, Springer and Politico leadership had considered a very typical pool of seasoned print veterans who’d spent the better part of their careers at places like the Financial Times, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press. As one source familiar with the search noted, this Spencer Stuart–furnished pipeline was stuffed with candidates who could’ve filled the top Los Angeles Times job a quarter-century ago. That would have been in keeping with Politico’s long tradition of bringing in ink-stained wretches like Rick Berke, Susan Glasser, Peter Canellos, and Matt Kaminski. Politico may have launched as a digital disruptor, but as it approaches its third decade, the institution really feels like a legacy newspaper company that just happens not to have a print product.

Mathias desperately wants to modernize Politico, sources familiar with his thinking said, and he is especially impatient to accelerate its multiplatform efforts beyond just renaming editors as executive producers. Months into the search, I’m told, he and his deputies grew so disenchanted with the available legacy candidates that they considered restarting the search from scratch. By that point, however, Harris, Politico C.E.O. Goli Sheikholeslami, and senior executive editor Alex Burns had been positioning Jonathan as an unconventional alternative: a leader who could straddle both editorial and commercial and, given his experience at ABC News, start fostering editorial talent for this new, if still somewhat nebulous, multiplatform future. One less-charitable view, of course, is that Goli & Co. wanted a known colleague in the job rather than an outsider who may have threatened their job security. As in most cases, all things are probably true.

In any event, Mathias sees Jonathan as Politico’s best-available hope for the future he envisions. He credits Jonathan, rightly, with the decision to hire Dasha Burns, the former NBC News correspondent who now serves as chief Playbook correspondent and—more notably in Mathias’s eyes—host of a Sunday show–esque YouTube series called The Conversation. (“Mathias sees Jonathan as ‘the guy who brought in Dasha,’” one source said.) He is bullish on Jonathan Martin’s new On the Road series, which has added a camera crew to the roving R.W. Apple shtick. (J-Mart recently cracked crab with Gavin Newsom in San Francisco.) And he delights in Politico’s ability to leverage partnerships at events like the Munich Security Conference and repackage those interviews for social. (Dasha sat down with Zelensky.)

These products may not be the cornerstone of Politico’s future success, but they’re certainly the template. Jonathan has been given a mandate—and a budget—to acquire new talent and develop existing journalists into camera-ready multiplatform stars. Jonathan is “definitely a buyer,” one source said. His first task, to no one’s surprise, is identifying a new anchor for the Playbook franchise, a once agenda-setting and highly lucrative asset that has struggled, sometimes humiliatingly, under Jack Blanchard. Jonathan has not determined who that leader will be. Presumably, he will need someone who can drive subscriber habits and headline events, even if the bulk of the newsletter is written by relatively anonymous support staff.

But Jonathan’s search for internal and external talent will extend well beyond that, and his early months on the job are likely to be punctuated by hires and promotions around journalists who he believes can be repackaged, subtly or overtly, as miked-up hosts, correspondents, and analysts. (“He wants Jonathan to replicate the Dasha hire,” a source said.) In some ways, this TV-inflected push has been underway since Jonathan joined Politico and began pitching the idea of “executive producers” for Playbook and other franchises. It’s indicative of a broader video-centric push in the industry that extends from The New York Times to The Wall Street Journal.

Jonathan’s recruitment effort also coincides, inconveniently, with a move by the site’s former owner, Robert Allbritton, to go on a hiring spree for his newish company, NOTUS. While no one at Politico seems to put much stock in Robert’s business plan, they are sensitive to his capacity to unsettle the market by inflating salary expectations. In addition to the A-list stars Jonathan hopes to attract, Politico’s business relies on a stable of second-tier journalists whom Robert is trying to poach. Politico leadership likely fears the possibility that existing staff could leverage a NOTUS offer for higher comp at Politico, which would eat into the budget.

Beyond talent development, Jonathan has also been given a mandate to better formalize Politico’s international business. Today, Politico consists of various pillars—a core Washington business and formidable Brussels operation, along with satellite verticals ranging from Sacramento to Albany to London, and now Brisbane. But these sites have effectively functioned in silos, almost like regional papers. Mathias envisions an integrated Politico that can leverage its global footprint for a more cohesive international report. And that is likely to entail further expansion. The plan, as one source put it, is to expand to every democratic capital with lobbyists, drive advocacy ad dollars, and then upsell each audience on the expensive Pro subscriptions that sustain the business. Easier said than done.

Can a former TV news producer help Politico get there? More to the point, does a business that now relies on its policy-focused enterprise subscription business even need the sizzle and pop of on-camera “stars”? It doesn’t really matter. Mathias envisions Springer as the leading news organization of the democratic world. He just acquired The Telegraph. He isn’t merely content with profits. He wants power and influence, too—and, as part of that effort, he wants Politico at the center of the global conversation.