Less than a week after announcing changes to its entry requirements making it easier for online writers to win awards, the Pulitzer Prize Board has announced a new appointment: Jim VandeHei, the co-founder of one of the most successful new media launches in recent years, Politico.com.

VandeHei, who is also Politico’s executive editor, is “the first representative of a primarily online news organization” to serve on the board, the Pulitzer committee said today. But he also has a print background. Before founding the Washington, D.C.-based site in 2007 with John F. Harris and Allbritton Communications, he worked for Roll Call and The Wall Street Journal — among other D.C. pubs — covering Capitol Hill.

It will be interesting to see if this new focus on online news will lead to Pultizers for online writers next year. Seems like they have a better chance now than ever before.

Previously: Online Writers Now Have Greater Shot Of Winning Pulitzer, Four Questions For Politico’s Jim VandeHei

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Barack Obama‘s presidential get-to-know-you tango with the Press hit another snag yesterday with word that Politico editor-in-chief John F. Harris was backing out of moderating duties at a Politico-sponsored event at the National Press Club after former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe stipulated that the speech he was giving be off-the-record. Per Politico:

“We took down our signage that’s up over there at the Press Club and declined to participate in any way,” Harris said. He said Politico was not “in the business of sponsoring, or co-sponsoring, an off-the-record talk with a newsworthy person.”

Donna Leinwand, president of the National Press Club, also voiced her “strong opposition” to Plouffe’s decision in a letter to the Washington Speakers Bureau, which serves as his agent.

All valid points, though one has to wonder in this age of Twitter whether anything in a public sphere can really be considered off-the-record.