Politico Journalism Institute
“The educational training program of Politico, the Washington political media organization, providing the journalism education and the political reporting training that prepares journalists for the coverage of American politics and the Washington policy process.”
Verified listing · Updated June 2026
The Politico Journalism Institute is the educational training program affiliated with Politico, the political media organization that Michael Allen and Jim VandeHei founded in 2007 as the internet-native publication dedicated to the coverage of American politics and the Washington policy process. Politico has become one of the defining political journalism organizations of the twenty-first century American media, establishing the Playbook newsletter as the most widely read daily political briefing in Washington and the Politico website as the primary destination for the real-time coverage of the congressional action, the executive branch policy, and the electoral politics that the Washington political community tracks.
The Politico Journalism Institute provides the journalism education that connects the aspiring political journalist to the professional political journalism environment. The training program, which draws on the Politico newsroom’s access to the sources, the events, and the Washington political infrastructure that constitutes the subject of the political journalism coverage, provides the journalism student and the early-career journalist with the specific education in the political reporting skills that the Washington journalism market requires.
Political journalism training in the Washington context involves the specific skills that the political beat demands: the ability to read the legislative text and to understand the policy implications that the specific provisions create; the knowledge of the committee structure and the institutional procedures that shape the legislative process; the relationship development with the staff and the members whose communications constitute the journalist’s sourcing; and the specific writing and the editing discipline that the fast-turnaround political journalism requires.
The Politico Journalism Institute serves the journalism education community with the Washington-based program that provides the political journalism training in the specific media environment where the political journalism matters most. Program schedules vary. The Politico Journalism Institute serves the larger mission of the Politico organization to produce the most authoritative and the most credible coverage of American politics: the journalists who receive the training that the Institute provides bring the specific knowledge and the reporting skills of the political journalism specialty to the coverage that the Washington political audience reads. The Washington political journalism market, which demands the specific expertise in the legislative process, the regulatory agency function, and the electoral politics that no other journalism market requires, is the subject of the training that the Politico Journalism Institute provides.
The journalism training context in Washington, which includes the National Press Club, the journalism schools of the American University and the Georgetown University and the George Washington University, and the editorial and the investigative internship programs of the Washington Post and Politico itself, provides the journalism student and the early-career journalist with the concentration of the political journalism resources that the Washington environment uniquely provides. Program schedules and the application information are available through the Politico website.