New York Times Launches ‘First Draft’ Site And Newsletter, Joe Biden Says ‘Politics Has Become Too Personal’

The New York Times is one of the most successful traditional and online newspapers of all time, but has failed to keep up with the modern digital age, according to The New York Times veteran Carl Hulse.

“We haven’t had sort of a running daily political news feed,” Hulse told The Huffington Post. “We’re trying to fill that void now. We may be late to the game, but we’re trying to do it in our own distinctive way.”

In response to the increasing need for a constant news feed, The New York Times is launching a new email newsletter and website called First Draft. The website will exist within The New York Times‘ website as a subsection for users to get instant news updates exclusively about politics. First Draft will also send news stories directly to the email accounts of subscribers. The First Draft newsletter will include political news that appeared in The New York Times that day, as well as some aggregation and links to competitors. According to Capital New York, the feed will be updated continually throughout the day with more laid-back and “loose” language than typical New York Times stories.

“Readers can come to First Draft throughout the day for breaking political news, ?campaign color, ??expert analysis ?and lighter takes on Washington personalities,” Hulse said in the site’s welcome note.

But First Draft will also have exclusive content that won’t appear in The New York Times paper, at least not right away. Carl Hulse is currently working as managing editor of the First Draft newsletter alongside reporter Alan Rappeport, producer Nicholas Corasaniti, and editor Paul Volpe. Hulse says that the First Draft feed will include in depth political analysis and commentary about certain stories that could later develop into full New York Times stories on later dates, but subscribers of First Draft will get the news first.

“Everyone here knows we need to be engaging in new ways with readers,” said Carl Hulse. “And everyone here has stuff in their notebooks and knows things and runs across things that we’re really not reporting now.”

Subscribing to the First Draft newsletter is free, but after clicking through 10 news stories, users will have to pay to see more. Currently, The New York Times hasn’t set up a launch sponsor for First Draft, but advertising opportunities are expected to show up further down the line.

One of the first big stories to pop out of the First Draft news feed was an interview with Vice President Joe Biden who claims that politics has become completely dysfunctional. When discussing the words of Senator leader Mike Mansfield, Biden said:

“Politics has become too personal. [Mansfield] said it is always appropriate to question a man or woman’s judgment, never their motive.”

To check out The New York Times new political news feed First Draft, click here.

The New York Times was recently in the news for having its paywall easily hacked, despite having spent $40 million to set it up.