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Everything from layoff plans to news that coffee shops will remain open in Government shutdown is good for text.
By Charlotte Tobitt
Politico has started using old-school SMS texting technology to send urgent news updates to an invite-only group of its core audience in Washington.
The politics and policy-focused publisher is sending messages that sound “personal and urgent” to a select group of lawmakers, political staffers, lobbyists working at the US Congress to make sure its updates are cutting through with as little intermediation as possible.
The free messages differ from push alerts that similarly can appear on a phone’s lock screen, because they are full updates in themselves rather than trying to push people to Politico’s website or app.
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The texts don’t always include story links so the business benefits of the service are primarily around building Politico’s relevance and visibility amongst some of its most influential readers. Axel Springer-owned Politico makes around half its revenue from subscriptions to its Pro service with the rest coming mainly from advertising and events sponsorship.
Zach Warmbrodt, who became Politico’s first executive producer for Congress a year ago, has been working to “strengthen our Congress coverage as a truly real-time breaking news engine in this really competitive environment for this very eager audience”. There are 12 reporters and editors on the Congress team.
Warmbrodt described SMS texting as an “untapped” means of distribution that could help them push their “great, scoopy, exclusive reporting”.
“How do I push that directly to this audience so they always know we are breaking news? We’re at the top of the stack. We are on their phone lock screens.”
Politico was texting a pilot group of audience members this summer, over a busy news period that featured the arrival of Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”.
Warmbrodt said Politico asked the pilot users for feedback and that by the end of the summer “it was very clear that they were, across the board, thrilled with the kind of formula we had landed on”.
He said: “I’ve been really struck by the enthusiasm for the Capitol Hill audience for this, it seems like we’re getting ahead of the curve here in a big way with them.”
In mid-September the texts were opened up to a wider, but still invite-only, group. Politico identifies the most relevant people in its audience, curating a target list, and they are sent a message directly from Warmbrodt explaining what they will get from the text messages if they sign up.
He said that since the text list was expanded, no-one has unsubscribed to the texts after signing up.
Politico’s daily Capitol Hill coverage starts with the Inside Congress newsletter at 4.50am, and includes a Congress blog that launches at 8am as well as other stories and newsletters going into the evening.
Warmbrodt said all of this coverage had been taken into consideration to ensure the addition of a text service would not be “spammy” but instead provide real-time updates that would help a very specific audience “do their jobs better.
“It’s a very fast-moving environment. It’s very high stakes. There’s a lot of information flowing, but not everyone has immediate access to it. So there’s a real premium on that.”
There is no target for how many texts should be sent per day, Warmbrodt said, with zero going out some days, one others, and sometimes several.
“That’s something we felt really strongly about,” he said. “We aren’t trying to fill the channel and we’re not trying to hit a specific cadence… There’s days when we might send very early in the morning or at 11 o’clock at night.
“That was one thing we learned about this audience: when there is actually truly valuable information, like the kind that we’re sending, they just want it any time of day or night, they just need to be informed.”
Warmbrodt described it as a “gut feeling” for journalists deciding what’s worth sending a text message.
“My reporters have amazing situational awareness of what is happening across the Capitol leadership level and committees, and when we have information that really moves the needle for people up there, it could be, you know, a deal was just struck, or a deal just fell through, or a really high stakes meeting is about to happen, or we just learned this really big vote is going to happen at X time tomorrow – that is when we jump and push it out…
“You know it when you see it – and when you see it, you have to send it.”
He said the key elements, therefore, are “really high-level news judgment, an intuitive sense of the audience, and also a team of reporters, which I’m really blessed to have, who is just constantly breaking news up there, because that is what the audience demands”.
It’s not all about deals, bills and meetings: a “coffee update” text reassuring people they would be able to get a brew even if the Government shut down last week (which it did) received immediate positive feedback, Warmbrodt said.
Recipients are able to reply directly to Politico by texting back.
Politico built its own in-house tech to distribute the texts rather than using external platforms like Subtext, which was founded in 2019 within US publisher Advance Local’s tech incubator Alpha Group and works with publishers like The Washington Post, Gannett, Axios and The Hill.
It appears likely that texting will soon be utilised within other areas of Politico coverage.
Warmbrodt said: “I think this is just the beginning. We have not announced any expansion plans, but I do think it has promise beyond the Hill.”
Politico said in a press release last month: “We launched the product on Capitol Hill, which is home to thousands of Politico readers who are without question the heart of our audience, but we’re not done. This initial rollout will inform how we can move this style of product to other key markets.”
[Read more: Politico Europe reports ‘significant growth’ as its team reaches 350 people]
According to Politico, Warmbrodt’s work making real-time updates a differentiator for the newsroom has already led to a 64% increase in Capitol Hill visits to its Congress output in January to June compared to the same period in 2024, with output growing by a similar proportion.
Politico said visits from Capitol Hill to its site had risen by 14% overall, meaning the “rising tide appears to be lifting all boats”.
Warmbrodt said he has overseen a “pretty significant restructuring” of the team in terms of beats, staffing and editors so they could deliver breaking news and scoops at the same time as continuing their “signature coverage of characters and profiles of key figures”.
They also reconfigured some products, for example by sending out the Inside Congress newsletter earlier in the day at 4.50am “so it’s truly your first read on the news of the day in Congress” and sending additional newsletter editions.
[Read more: The joy of text: Publishers use old tech to reach new readers]
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