If you’ve seen “Iron Man 2,” and judging by the movie’s $238.8 million take at the box office in its first three weeks there’s a good chance you have, you saw a lot of crazy special effects. Like plenty of movies, you had to suspend reality because about 97 percent of the movie could never happen in real life. But the most far-fetched moment comes when Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark testifies before the Senate Armed Forces Committee. If you haven’t seen it, you may want to skip the next paragraph
**SPOILER ALERT**
Once he gets in front of the committee, Tony, our fearless Iron Man, unleashes all the possible theatrics. He insults his rival in the defense technology business who is also testifying, panders to the crowd and the cameras and takes control of a closed circuit television with his fancy iPhone on steroids. The committee chairman, played by a not-so-graciously-aging Garry Shandling, tops it off by letting Tony know exactly what he thinks of his antics. “F— you buddy,” the supposed senator says with a smirk.
Unfortunately for anyone who has covered a congressional committee hearing, that’s not exactly how it goes. It’s a little more, well, boring than that. But just because the world’s most explosive superhero isn’t satisfying his ego-filled appetite doesn’t mean a hearing can’t be interesting. Here are five tips to combing through the legislative process and finding the news at a hearing.
1. Know the back-story – This sounds like a given, but it still warrants mentioning. Having an understanding of how the committee arrived where it has and why they’ve scheduled the hearing gives a reporter a knowledge base from which to interpret the events as they unfold.
2. Try to get prepared testimony beforehand – The chairman, ranking member and all those testifying will make opening statements, which they also provide in writing. People called to testify will often provide much more than just their opening statement in their written testimony, as they generally only have five minutes before taking questions. While these are always available at the hearing, you can occasionally get your hands on them a little further in advance. They will give you an idea of where committee members will drive the hearing, what the testifiers want to say and when your ears should perk up a little.
3. If you’re going to a morning hearing, bring a lunch! – As someone who figured the break would be at least an hour at his first hearing, I cannot stress this one enough. Hearings that begin in the morning and stretch into the afternoon are common, and you’re probably not going to get more than half an hour for a break. While some federal buildings, like the Dirksen and Rayburn House Office Buildings both have solid cafeterias, you may not want to rush down a few flights of stairs when everyone else in the building is trying to get lunch too. Just pack a sandwich. Trust me, you’ll be happy you did. And you’ll have a much better time focusing on the afternoon portion with some food in your belly.
4. Have a good note-taking strategy – Questions and answers bounce around like pinballs and they can be hard to follow. Since you aren’t asking any questions yourself, and since they come from multiple directions, it’s much different than a traditional interview. You need to approach it as such. I bring my laptop and audio recorder to each hearing. I take extreme shorthand notes on the questions and focus on the answers. I use the initials of people testifying when they give their answers. And I change tracks for each committee member’s round of questioning, noting which track goes with which member in my notes. That way, I can easily remember who asked what without memorizing voices or having to type their names with each question.
5. For once, the congressmen are not the newsmakers – If you report in Washington, you spend so much of your time chasing senators and representatives that you sometimes think the world revolves around them. And sometimes it does (although not quite as much as they think). But at hearings, it’s the answers given by the panel with which you should be concerned. That’s where the news is. That’s where someone will say someone in a position of power did not do their job or where someone in the know will make a suggestion about where Agency X or Institution Y should go from here. Committees call hearings to get answers from the people they ask to testify, not to hear themselves talk (most of the time).
Michael Beller is a sports business reporter for the Medill News Service. Washington Reporting 2.0 is an opinion blog where Medill reporters dole out useful advice for their fellow reporters in the nation’s capitol. Check out Michael’s other work on www.medilldc.net and turningtwo.wordpress.com.