PiPress outsources RNC coverage

The Pioneer Press has announced a handshake deal with news website Politico.com for RNC coverage. The Politico logo will be slapped onto the front page right next to that of the PiPress and Politico reporters will do the heavy lifting for somewhere in the neighborhood of several pages a day during convention week. There is a similar DNC arrangement with the Denver Post. PiPress Editor Thom Fladung explained the deal succinctly: "They are deeply sourced in DC."

More from the Editor & Publisher article:

Fladung said the Politico co-section will be the first section of the paper, with a second front page of non-convention news leading the second section.

"We have established partnerships with those papers that are more robust than anything I have ever known of," said Politico Editor-In-Chief John Harris ... "These are obviously big events for the hometown papers, so this gives them a first-rate national political team and gives us a platform for our journalism when the conventions are in town."

Politico, which launched in 2007, plans to send more than 30 staffers to each convention, but not publish a convention newspaper as many political and Washington, D.C. outlets do ... VandeHei said that his staffers will be working with Post and Pioneer Press journalists on a number of stories, as well as running content from the newspapers on the Politico.com site: "We are really coordinating coverage so we can offer people access."

Fladung said his paper has been working with Politico for months already on various campaign stories. He cited the Pioneer Press scoop that Barack Obama had planned to declare himself the Democratic nominee in St. Paul last month after wrapping up the required delegates. "We were the first in the nation to report it and they helped confirm it," he said.

That leaves, what, the good people at Powerline for the Strib?