NOTUS ("News of the United States") is a digital news outlet owned by NOTUS Media, LLC and affiliated with the Allbritton Journalism Institute, a nonprofit organization founded by Robert Allbritton in 2023.
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History
Robert Allbritton, a founder of Politico, established the Allbritton Journalism Institute in 2023 with a personal grant of $20 million. According to Allbritton, he intended to create an outlet to train aspiring public affairs journalists, filling a gap formerly occupied by daily newspapers.
In March 2026, Semafor reported that Allbritton had plans to rebrand NOTUS and double its staff in response to large-scale layoffs at The Washington Post. He and his leadership team intended to build the "next great Washington newspaper."
In April 2026, editor-in-chief Tim Grieve announced that NOTUS would be renamed The Star effective in June of that year, with increased coverage of local news and sports in the Washington area as well as the White House and Congress. Ahead of the rebranding, NOTUS hired multiple reporters who were formerly with The Washington Post. On June 2, 2026, federal judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. in Northern Virginia blocked the renaming due to a trademark dispute with the revived version of The Washington Star.
Organization
NOTUS operates as a website at notus.org and publishes a daily newsletter. It also distributes its content to local nonprofit news organizations such as Oklahoma Watch, the Santa Barbara News-Press, and others. In addition to its endowment from Allbritton, NOTUS has received funding from the Henry L. Kimelman Family Foundation, the Sandpiper Fund, the Google News Initiative, corporate advertisers, and syndication fees paid by its local news partners.
Staff
NOTUS covers the politics of the United States. It is staffed by a combination of experienced professional journalists and term-limited staff—"fellows"—of whom ten are annually selected from recent university graduates and early-career journalists for a paid work experience reporting for NOTUS for 24 months, preceded by a month-long immersion course in Washington, D.C. and augmented by guest courses taught by veteran reporters. Some of the senior editors have included Richard Just, Matt Fuller, Kate Nocera, and Matt Berman.
Notable journalists on NOTUS's staff include Jasmine Wright, Haley Byrd Wilt, Oriana González, Evan McMorris-Santoro, and Maggie Severns.
NOTUS named longtime Bloomberg L.P. executive Arielle Elliott its first CEO in March 2025.