Politico

Politico is a politics and policy news organization. By its own account it has published since 2007 and now employs more than 1,100 publishing professionals across Washington, Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, Sacramento and New York. It is a subsidiary of Axel Springer SE, the Berlin- and New York-headquartered media company.

Products

Politico’s free news site is paired with POLITICO Pro, a paid subscription product launched in 2011 and sold to policy professionals. Politico describes Pro as combining real-time policy news with in-depth analysis, legislative and regulatory trackers, directories of decision-makers and stakeholder-management tools. The organization also publishes a set of newsletters, of which the Playbook family is the best known, and runs regional editions for Europe, the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

Ownership

Politico was owned by Robert Allbritton until 2021. Axel Springer announced an agreement to acquire it on 26 August 2021 and completed the transaction on 19 October 2021, becoming 100 percent owner of Politico, Politico’s 50 percent interest in POLITICO Europe, Protocol, E&E News and AgencyIQ. Axel Springer’s chief executive Mathias Döpfner described the purchase at the time as an expansion of the company’s U.S. presence, and Allbritton called Axel Springer “the perfect owner to take our publications to the next level.”

Sourcing Note

politico.com returns HTTP 403 to automated clients, so this page cites POLITICO’s own about page on its European edition instead. The names of Politico’s founders and the reported purchase price of the Axel Springer deal are not stated here: neither could be confirmed against a source that could be fetched.