Once its expansion is complete, Bloomberg Government will have 300 journalists and economic experts staffed in the nation's capital. Subscriptions will cost $5,700 a year, with government users receiving a discount.

Those who pony up for a subscription will be privy to, among other tools, vast amounts of aggregated stories, in-house analysis and research and a Congressional staff database. 

If the brash strategy works, Congressional Quarterly and National Journal — as well as places like Politico — won't be the only D.C. institutions to be endangered: lobbyists who are paid to provide government figures with this type of information may find themselves outpaced by this well-oiled hybrid of of news service and database tool.

Health care lobbyist Jean Higgens, for example, nervously joked that the service could render her job obsolete. “If I live outside Washington, this is a pretty big universe of information I pay a lobbyist to know,” she told The Times. “I guess I think at the end of the day a computer can’t take someone to Capitol Hill to meet a member of Congress. Until that happens, I think I’ll be O.K.”