‘Politico‘s Mike Allen: The Man the White House wakes up to’ by Mark Leibovich

There’s no single article about journalism that I would encourage those pursuing a future in the profession to read. Instead, what I would encourage aspiring journalists to do is to follow the work of some of the commentators who have so much to say about the profession and where it is heading.

Bookmark or follow on Twitter, commentators such as Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis), Michael Wolff (@MichaelWolffNYC), Steve Outing (@steveouting), Roy Greenslade (@GreensladeR) and locally, Mark Day and Errol Simper, who write in The Australian. Pretty much every day of the week, they’ll offer items that inspire, fascinate, provoke and/or outrage.

Having said all that, a recent New York Times Magazine profile of Mike Allen, a senior reporter with Politico, is absorbing.  It illustrates how the tools of journalism have changed and explains how a humble start-up has so quickly become a major part of the American media landscape.

Conversely, a scan through the comments accompanying the article contains the usual suspicions of his politics, suggestions of bias, but more importantly, lingering concern about the growing concentration of American media and how even the White House is playing its part.

Ashley Browne is editor of the sports analysis and opinion site BackPageLead, and was recently interviewed on upstart about this new venture by co-editor Matt de Neef.

Go here for more on the ‘100 articles every journalist should read about journalism’ project.