Longtime political reporter David Weigel credits a break from pack journalism as key to shaping the identity of news start-up Semafor a year after its launch.

A November interview with former secretary of State Mike Pompeo helped raise Semafor’s profile after the former Trump cabinet member proclaimed the head of the American Federation of Teachers as the “most dangerous person in the world,” Weigel told the National Press Foundation’s Paul Miller fellows.

Weigel, a former Washington Post staffer, said Semafor’s political and business journalism has helped propel the digital news operation even as it confronted the federal fraud indictment of former investor and cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried.

What he said:

“We were breaking news on (Bankman-Fried) that directly affected the publication’s bottom line. I thought that was exciting.”

“I joined (the start-up) partly because I realized that that’s one sort of job I’d never had … It’s always tough when you have a job that you like quite a lot and you now have to write a message saying, ‘This has been going great. I could spend my whole career here. However, I’d like to try something brand new that doesn’t exist yet.’”

“Being not one of the big D.C. publications people had heard of had big advantages in covering conservatives. There were conservatives who just did not want to talk to the [Washington] Post at all. … Their voters didn’t read it, they didn’t care. The story would be framed in a way they didn’t like. … [Semafor] had a new opening to people who were publishing what they said, knew what they were working on, asked questions that showed we were interested.”

Read the full transcript here.