Politico exposed

I confess to guilty pleasures about Politico, the newspaper-website that covers the political game in Washington with gusto, and financial success. I appreciate that it's still mostly free, though I worry about the specialized PoliticoPro stories that cost $1,000 or more a year for subscribers.

But the tone of articles is often like a rant, and its eagerness for immediacy results in mostly one-sided stories. It often seems a dumping ground for unfiltered press releases by political campaigns and congressional offices. There's no effort to distinguish "important" from "latest" stories.

Now we have a media blogger at the Washington Post exposing the tactic of one of Politico's most-read column, Mike Allen's Playbook, of giving lots of friendly and free publicity to those who advertise there. Not a pretty site.