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Little Allbritton

As the son of a yesteryear D.C. media baron, and the moneyman behind Politico, Robert Allbritton is still fighting for credit. Now he’s rebranding NOTUS, his post-Politico plaything, by hiring reporters and once again going after The Washington Post.

Robert Allbritton
Robert’s previous claim to fame is bankrolling Politico, which sold for $1 billion to Mathias Döpfner’s Axel Springer in 2021. The deal netted him a significant pile to place on top of the fortune he’d already inherited from his family. Photo: Shannon Finney/Getty Images
Dylan Byers
March 18, 2026

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This week, Robert Allbritton, the boyishly ebullient Washington media heir and former proprietor of Politico, revealed a plan to aggressively increase his investment in NOTUS, the fledgling political news startup that he launched two years ago from inside his 501(c)(3), the Allbritton Journalism Institute. The plan includes doubling NOTUS’s 50-person staff this year, starting with three reporters he poached this week from The Washington Post—which, as you know, has been going through some considerable shit. Taking on a floundering Post was the animating insight of Politico, of course. Now Robert is at it again.