Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei’s new company doesn’t have a name yet. And he has yet to explain exactly what the company will be, exactly.
Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei has hired an editor to cover tech at his media startup
It’s Kim Hart, currently the press secretary at the FCC.
Peter Kafka covered media and technology, and their intersection, at Vox. Many of his stories can be found in his Kafka on Media newsletter, and he also hosts the Recode Media podcast.
But he’s hiring for it anyway. Here’s his newest recruit: Kim Hart, the current press secretary at the Federal Communications Commission, will oversee tech coverage for the newco, which should launch early next year.
Hart, who previously worked for VandeHei as a writer and editor at Politico, will be in charge of a beat he says will encompass “the collision of business, technology and politics.”
Hart will continue working at the FCC through Dec. 2. She’ll start working for VandeHei three days later.
Hart says she will work “in parallel” with Dan Primack, the star finance reporter VandeHei hired away from Fortune last month. David McCabe, who has been covering tech for The Hill, will report to her, and she says she’ll likely hire another two reporters before launch.
VandeHei’s thing-to-be-named, which he’s launching with Politico star Mike Allen, is backed by a reported $10 million in funding from Lerer Hippeau, the investors who helped launch Huffington Post and BuzzFeed. Other backers include Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective and Comcast’s NBCUniversal (which is also an investor in Vox Media, which owns this site.)
Beyond details like a name, VandeHei has yet to spell out how exactly his new company will make money. Politico had a lucrative subscription newsletter business, and it’s reasonable to believe his thing will, too. But he hasn’t committed to anything publicly yet.
Our plan is to get more out of him in a couple weeks at our Evening with Code Media event in New York City. He’ll be onstage at our Nov. 30 gathering, as will BuzzFeed U.K.’s editor Janine Gibson and Turner CEO John Martin.
This would have been an excellent series of conversations under any circumstances. Now, given the Trumpian landscape that media companies are facing, things should be even more interesting.
In VandeHei’s words: “Everyone was shocked by the election results. So everyone should recalibrate their approach to journalism and business. For us, it amplifies how much you have to understand the complexities of the world.”
True!
We’ve got a few seats left. You can join us by registering here.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
