At the end of last month, POLITICO announced that it had tapped Jonathan Greenberger, the ABC News veteran who joined the publication as executive vice president in 2024, as its next editor in chief. Greenberger won’t officially assume the role from current top editor John Harris until next month. But, practically speaking, he is already spending his days in Rosslyn surveying the landscape and quietly plotting his first moves.

His first major predicament will be charting a future for Playbook, the outlet’s flagship newsletter. The Mike Allen-founded morning tip-sheet, often referred to as the bible of Washington, has struggled to find its footing since Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer exited the publication in 2020. In the ensuing years, POLITICO has cycled through different strategies in an effort to inject new life into the property. It first tapped Ryan Lizza, Rachael Bade, Tara Palmeri, and Eugene Daniels as part of a rotating cast of writers to steer the newsletter. But ultimately, that experiment failed to deliver the authority the franchise once commanded.

Harris, searching for a solution, then made an unconventional move. Last January, he announced that the outlet’s U.K. editor Jack Blanchard would relocate to the U.S. and take the reins of the prominent publication. For a variety of reasons, it hasn’t worked out—something POLITICO’s brass now acknowledges. Indeed, last month we reported that Blanchard’s future was up in the air. That’s no longer the case. Status has learned that POLITICO plans to remove Blanchard from the role and attempt, yet again, to reset the publication.