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Abigail Phillips

Why are you interested in public service and why did you apply to this internship?
Journalism is something that I’m really passionate about and I see it as the ultimate public service. I applied for this internship because I have always been a dedicated Politico reader who has really admired the attention that it pays to keeping our public servants accountable for their actions in Washington, DC. Politico is a 24 hour a day eye on this city and the people who run it, which is a public service to millions of taxpayers across the country and also an invaluable service to our democracy.

In about two sentences, please describe the main responsibilities of your internship this summer.  
I’m primarily responsible for reporting, researching and writing stories about the political happenings in Washington, DC and in congressional races across the country. I spend my days doing lexis searches, leaving messages for press secretaries, and keeping myself informed about what is going on in Washington and around the world.

What are you working on this week?
This week I’ve been focused on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or the Stimulus bill for short. I’m focusing on whether it is doing a good job of stimulating the economy and whether the Obama administration is making good on its transparency promises to the American people.

Have you had any "face time" with the head of the office yet? 
I have lots of face time with the people who run this office.  I recently did some research for Jim VandeHei, our managing editor, and Jonathan Martin, our senior political editor for a piece they were working on about the future of the GOP. All of the interns here work directly with senior editors and they really make it a priority for us to communicate with the people making decisions in the newsroom.

Of the staff at the office, whose job do you think is the most interesting?
Perhaps, indisputably the most interesting character in this office is the immensely talented Mike Allen, our senior White House reporter and author of the Politico Playbook. Mike a great person to watch function from up close. You can’t help but be energized by his enthusiasm for the news and his all around talent. He is without question a very sharp tool in the shed, but I often wonder how he gets it all done.

Have any really exciting guests/visitors come by the office recently? 
Since I’ve been here, Nikki Haley – a potential gubernatorial candidate in South Carolina and (perhaps formerly) staunch Mark Sanford ally – stopped by for an interview with our staff. I didn’t get a chance to be in on that one, but I love it when elections start early!

Have you worked on any fun events/projects yet at your job?
My first story for Politico was pretty fun, fast and exciting. I got a chance to track down some Senate disclosure forms for official office spending and I found some interesting stuff – namely that a few senators had spent thousands flying around their states on chartered flights with taxpayer money. It was an exciting find that got me on the front page of the paper and on the web, but I was in the dog house with the press secretaries of some of the offending Senators!

In one sentence or less, tell me something you learned either from or about your job that everyone should know. 
The Federal government is pretty on top of their business – they have to be—but it makes it more important, and more difficult, to call them on the things they are doing wrong, which is what journalists ought to be doing.

Have you had an experience during your internship recently that has shown you the importance of politics and public service?
I definitely dealt with the interplay of politics and public service with my first story on Senators’ spending on travel. Public officials are given money by the government to serve their constituents, and that usually means going back to their home states and talking to every day people. But when that money is abused or used unnecessarily, the only people looking out for the taxpayer are journalists and watchdog groups who go to the basement of the capitol and track down this money. At least right now, it is a shame that ordinary citizens who don’t live in the district can’t do that because these documents are not online – but hopefully at some point in the future, that will change!

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