Politico has announced The House editor Rosa Prince as the new editor for its London Playbook newsletter.
The newsletter, which goes out early in the morning and often serves as an agenda-setter for the Westminster village, has gone without a dedicated editor since previous writer Alex Wickham left for Bloomberg in the summer.
As well as Prince, Politico said it is appointing the Mirror’s online political editor Dan Bloom to be one of two deputy editors for Playbook, alongside current deputy Eleni Courea. Bloom will be the second high-profile departure from the Mirror’s politics team this year, following the summer departure of former political editor Pippa Crerar to The Guardian.
Politico also said it will be introducing an afternoon edition of Playbook because “the news cycle never stops”. Emilio Casalicchio, a Politico reporter who has shared Playbook writing duties with Courea and other Politico staff since Wickham’s departure, will be the editor of the new “London Playbook PM”.
Before The House Prince spent more than ten years as a political correspondent, first at the Mirror and then The Telegraph. At the latter she was part of the team that broke the expenses scandal story.
Prince starts work at Politico in February, when the newsletter’s afternoon edition will also launch. She said in a statement: “It is an honour to be entrusted with the next, exciting stage in [Playbook’s] journey as Politico grows the product and widens its audience, with even more scoops, thorough scene-setting and the high quality analysis readers have come to expect.”
Casalicchio wrote in Thursday’s Playbook that rather than returning to the old system under which the morning newsletter had one principal author, Prince will write Playbook two days a week and Bloom and Courea will share writing duties for the other three days. Casalicchio will write the PM edition alone.
Kate Day, the deputy editor in chief of Politico Europe, said: “We have proven that we can become indispensable to a British audience in the same way we are to readers in Brussels and Washington. With a reinforced Playbook team and a new afternoon edition of Playbook, we’re preparing for the next step of growth for Politico in the UK. Watch this space!”
[Read more: How low-tech email newsletters ‘weathered the storm’ to become vital part of UK media landscape]
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