Karl Rove Goes Vertical
May 12, 2008 – 10:52 pmEarlier today, the New York Times ran this article discussing how Karl Rove, the man responsible for President Bush (II’s) campaigns, has jumped from politico to journalist. Rove, per the times:
[is] an analyst for Fox News and a contributor to Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal. A book is in the offing, too. (Still no word on a radio show, but there was an NPR appearance late last week.)
Regardless of what you think about the man, it’s a pretty amazing jump. But what’s more amazing is that Karl Rove is, in a strange way, a format agnostic vertical in and of himself. Compare Rove to Jayson Blair, the disgraced former Times reporter. Blair started off as a Times intern, then became an “intermediate reporter”, then bounced from one desk to another, etc. The entire time, there were two rules that controlled what he’d write about — the topic didn’t matter, but the format (newspaper) did. Blair, plagiarism and other issues aside, would have been much more likely to leave the Times for the Washington Post or the WSJ than he would for, say, CNN or Forbes.
Rove, on the other hand, is focusing on one thing — political analysis — and is doing that job for any format that will listen — TV, newspapers, magazines, books, maybe radio. He’s gone vertical.
At the end of the day, who would you rather hire? The topical expert, or the format one? Even if it is Karl Rove.
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