Politico, Brother, Where Art Thou?

John Harris
Several journalists have blamed co-founder John Harris and his Kushneresque news chief Alex Burns for an exacting and sometimes overbearing editing process. Photo: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Dylan Byers
January 3, 2025

This week, a team of editors at The Washington Post sent a practically funereal note to their staff announcing the regrettable defection of one of their top young political journalists. After “a remarkable, scoop-filled run as a White House reporter,” Tyler Pager had decided to take his talents five blocks west to The New York Times, where he will soon reunite with Matea Gold, the longtime Post managing editor who also migrated to the Times last month after being passed over for the Post’s top editor job. “Tyler’s loss will be keenly felt in the Post newsroom,” the paper’s national editor Phil Rucker wrote, “but we wish him the best in this new phase of his career.”