The Capitol Hill press corps is one of the most exclusive and insulated clubs there is. One must not only possess a substantial journalistic background but also the right kind of mentality to gain entrance. But as it happens, much of the most useful work reporting on Hill happenings can be, and increasingly is, done by citizen journalists working without that exclusive access.
For the past year or so, I’ve been covering committee hearings live, often livetweeting as @jkoul, and along the way I have met some other folks doing similar types of citizen journalism from a variety of angles. At Netroots Nation this year, I had the pleasure to organize a training session called "Covering Congress: The Art of Insider Citizen Reporting".
See below the fold for video highlights...
The inspiration for the panel was a new organization called Main Street Insider that brings together a few of these voices under a common banner. Even before Main Street Insider formally existed, I was talking with David Waldman of Congress Matters and Mike Stark of StarkReports.com about collaboration and decided we all had experiences that could be shared and would hopefully inspire others to join us in doing the often-lonely work that we do. Along the way, we added Marcy Wheeler and David Dayen of FireDogLake, and Donny Shaw of OpenCongress, who do equally valuable insider reporting from outside the Washington area.
Highlights from the panel:
David Waldman recapped his Don’t Ask Don’t Tell tweet story as first told in his blog post "The Second Flavor of Transparency".
Jeremy Koulish (me) shared some insights on the development of Main Street Insider’s new Committee Dashboard tool and its limitations; because most of the committees post their videos on Windows Media Player, the guy who put the tool together can’t even watch hearings because he uses a Mac.
Donny Shaw told a story of how his site attracted a ton of python owners out of the blue, and why they found OpenCongress so useful.
Mike Stark explained how he started getting much better and more frequent interviews on Capitol Hill once he stopped acting "like a dick".
Marcy Wheeler offered a number of useful tips for independent journalists, such as "stay until the end of the hearing" and "read the original document".
David Dayen made the case that it’s easier to report on Congress from outside DC, and suggested it’s easier to talk to a legislative staffer than you’d think, and explained why you should never take a congressperson at their word as a reporter.