Overview

Gender

male

Jim VandeHei, 43, is executive editor and co-founder of POLITICO, a nonpartisan media company covering national politics and Washington governance.VandeHei, along with John F. Harris and Allbritton Communications, launched POLITICO in early 2007 and quickly established it as one of the leading new media companies in the nation. Vanity Fair recently named VandeHei among the 100 most powerful Information Age thinkers for helping create the “model for the new media success story.”

In December 2009 VandeHei was selected to be the first representative of a primarily online news organization to serve on the Pulitzer Prize Board Drawing on 15 years of experience in Washington journalism, VandeHei helps direct POLITICO's editorial content and oversee its business strategy. The company has more than 230 employees, all focused on amalgamating the old media values of fairness and accuracy with the speed and immediacy of new technologies. POLITICO’s website reaches between 4 and 5 million unique visitors in an average month, and with a distribution of nearly 40,000 copies, its Washington-based newspaper is delivered to every member of Congress, the White House, senior government officials, lobbyists and key offices on Wall Street.

VandeHei, a native of Oshkosh, Wis., is a regular political analyst on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and is a frequent guest on numerous cable and network television programs. He co-moderated with MSNBC and CNN two televised presidential debates during the 2008 campaign, including the first debate to incorporate questions voted on by a live online audience. He is also in demand as a public speaker, giving speeches and moderating debates and panel discussions on politics, new media and the future of journalism.

VandeHei graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1994 with degrees in journalism and political science.He became interested in journalism after covering sports for the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern and then running The Brillion News, a small-town weekly in Wisconsin, in the summer of 1993.

VandeHei moved to Washington in 1995 to pursue a career in political journalism. His first job was reporting on the alternative fuels industry for New Fuels Report, a weekly newsletter. In 1996, VandeHei started writing for Inside the New Congress, a now-defunct weekly newsletter that covered the House and the Senate.Soon afterward, VandeHei became congressional correspondent for Roll Call, where he covered the fall of House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the battles for power within the Republican majority. He was the first to report on how Republicans were secretly exploring the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and that then-Rep. Bob Livingston would turn down his opportunity to become speaker because of an extramarital affair.The Wall Street Journal recruited VandeHei in 1999 to cover Capitol Hill. He was named White House correspondent for the Journal in 2000, and he covered the first year of President George W. Bush’s administration.

In 2002, The Washington Post offered VandeHei a position covering Congress, and he was soon tapped to cover the Democratic fight for the nomination in 2004, followed by the general election. He served as one of the Post's White House correspondents during the first year of Bush’s second term, a beat that was expanded to include politics and governance in 2005.
VandeHei's political editor at the Post was John F. Harris. The two came up with the idea of launching POLITICO during a series of casual conversations in the summer of 2006 with Mike Allen, then of Time magazine, and a few others. VandeHei and Harris left the Post in November 2006 to start the new venture with Robert L. Allbritton and Frederick J. Ryan Jr., publisher and CEO, respectively, of POLITICO.VandeHei is married to Autumn Hanna VandeHei, a policy and development consultant for nonprofit organizations. They have two children, Sophie and James, and reside in Alexandria, Va.