INDIA ABROAD JANUARY 13, 2017 10 COVER STORY
INDIAABROAD.COM
few developments, so he waited
for the hearing the finish up.
Raju was the only reporter in the
halls when Kaine exited the
room, and Raju asked him for his
thoughts on Mike Flynn, the
president-elect’s chosen National
Security Advisor.
“He goes off on Flynn,” said
Raju. “He called him a guy who is
peddling in conspiracy theories
that even a fourth grader would
not believe. Immediately, that’s
news. It was on TV within an
hour, and drove news coverage
Maintaining relationships with
sources is also part of the game,
and Raju had long-standing rela-
tionship with staffers and con-
sultants on both sides of the
aisle. During his time writing for
Politico, those relationships bore
fruit, as Raju broke new stories
almost every day, remember
Zapler.
In 2012, Raju and a handful of
other Politico reporters won the
Merriman Smith award for White
House reporting under deadline
pressure, for their coverage of
the fiscal crisis. Raju dove into
the making of the sausage,
reporting on infighting between
Republican leadership and the
White House during the deal-making that led to the decision to
raise the debt ceiling. In the
story, readers feel like a fly on
the wall, with access to tense
conversations and strained relationships that happened behind
closed doors in Washington.
“Raju excels at that inside-the-room reporting,” said Zapler.
That kind of access comes in
part from having trusted sources,
and maintaining sources for
years, said Raju, is a matter of
honesty.
“Oftentimes a source will give
me something that is helpful to
them, but then I may do a story
that is hurtful to them,” said
Raju.
“My job is to be honest, to tell
them before it comes out and let
them argue.” That way, he said,
he builds trust and credibility
with them. “That’s where a lot
of young journalists struggle:
they are worried about those
uncomfortable conversations
and avoid them, but then that
source feels burned.”
All relationships haven’t
been smooth sailing for Raju; in
2013, he drew the ire of Cruz,
who was then leading the fight
to defund the Affordable Care
Act, or “Obamacare,” leading to
a government shutdown.
In Cruz’s book, “A Time for
Truth,” he highlights several of
Raju’s stories — though not
mentioning Raju by name — as
essentially functioning as a
mouthpiece of the Republican
establishment, positively and
unquestioningly representing
the views of Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell and
soliciting anonymous GOP voic-
es to vilify Cruz.
“One particular Politico
reporter often seems like his is
Mitch McConnell’s press secretary,” wrote Cruz in his book.
“Nearly every attack from lead-
ership gets echoed and ampli-
fied in his stories.”
Raju was unfazed. “Being an
aggressive reporter sometimes
means getting blowback from
powerful politicians,” said Raju.
“But Cruz never disputed the
accuracy of any of the stories.”
As Raju was coming up in
journalism, he found several
opportunities to get an educa-
tion in how Washington works;
his first job in D.C. was with a
trade publication, “Inside EPA,”
covering energy and environmental policy.
After his years covering
sports for his college newspaper, the University of Wisconsin
- Madison Badger Herald, Raju
was in unfamiliar waters.
“I didn’t know anything
about environmental policy,
and I barely knew how
Washington worked, “ said
Raju. “I learned how to develop
sources, how to cover obscure
federal policy and to translate it
into what regular people were
interested in.”
For his parents — his father
was a neonatologist in Chicago
for years, and both his mother
and father worked for the
National Institutes of Health for
a few decades — his decision to
Continued on page 12
Above, Raju interviewing Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in 2013. Left, Raju and
his wife Archana Mehta at the 2012 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Below, Raju interviewing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in 2014. Below left, Raju talking
to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in 2014 while with Politico
Manu Raju,
CNN's King
of the Hill
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