Two years ago this month, the world tuned in to watch Donald Trump take the Presidential Oath of Office on the steps of the United States Capitol and—love him or hate him—the nation was rocked by a seismic shift in what constitutes acceptable political behavior.
Also two years ago, just across the river in Arlington, a digital news platform booted up and almost immediately became a must-read source for wall-to-wall White House coverage. Axios, launched by former Politico heads Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, found its footing with deep dives into the administration and its impacts on a wide-range of industries.
The nascent news site even caught the attention of HBO, and late last year the cable network, known for prestige television, premiered a four-part documentary series called, simply, Axios on HBO. Still available on HBO GO, it takes viewers inside the newsroom for a behind the scenes look at covering the day’s hottest headlines.
Extended interviews with everyone from Elon Musk (riffing about his plans to live on Mars) to the president himself (riffing on, well, everything) are interspersed with scenes of Axios’ journalists breaking it all down. Here, Allen and VandeHei (both longtime NoVA residents themselves) talk shop for the cameras as Arlington’s Clarendon neighborhood unfurls below them.
No word yet on if the show will be back for another season, but the reporters at Axios in Arlington will continue churning out breaking news with or without HBO’s camera crew.
