Seung Min Kim of the Associated Press said she only stopped “freaking out” after a year and a half in Washington reporting. She and Ben Pershing of the Wall Street shared advice with NPF’s Paul Miller fellows on mastering government coverage. [Transcript | Video]
4 takeaways:
➀ Lean into policy reporting. Although policy reporting can be dry, learning the skills opens up a wealth of job opportunities. “If you know how to cover a policy issue well, you’ll find a job and you’ll be able to stay here,” Pershing said. Many of the skills behind mastering policy reporting are easily transferable. “It’s just a really good skill set,” he said. “It’s something I love to see in young reporters if I’m looking at resumes or if I want to hire someone, even if it’s not for a policy job.”
“The ability to grab someone who isn’t interested in your topic and make them interested is the best skill you can have,” Pershing said.
It can help with access, too.
“Most members of Congress do actually want to talk about committee work and policy work,” Kim said.
➁ Titles do not equal importance. When seeking interviews, follow the influence. “Having a sense of why someone has leverage and power and why someone else doesn’t is just really useful at any beat,” Pershing said. For instance, the people who had the most sway over voting Kevin McCarthy in as speaker were not the people with the most illustrious titles. “Marjorie Taylor Greene was actually really important in that process, even though technically she’s not in leadership, she’s not a chairwoman,” Pershing said. “Doesn’t matter, she was really important.”
➂ Talk to people in person. Kim said in person, sources can’t ignore journalists. “But more importantly, they get to know your face,” she said. “They get to trust you.”
She said when she covered Congress for Politico, she ran into Trump’s chief of staff outside the Senate chamber. “He was in a mood, so he talked to us for 20 minutes, and it was such a newsy interview,” she said.
Pershing said the best sources are the ones journalists know as people. Talking with people in person or over the phone is preferable to texting or emailing. “Find a reason to talk to people when you don’t need anything from them,” Pershing said.
Informally asking policy aides for their insights on a topic area can help build trust, but reporters need to listen, he said.
“I think there’s a tendency among some reporters to want to impress their sources with how much they know,” Pershing said. “If you’re asking a question that sounds like you already know the answer, what’s the point?”
➃ Tailor questions that matter to your audience.“Everywhere you work has a different bar for what’s a story and what’s not,” Pershing said. An article for an insider publication and one for a broad general audience will look very different, even if they both cover the same topic.
Prior to her time with the Associated Press, Seung Min Kim had to find questions that mattered to ask in the White House briefing room for her audience at the Washington Post. “What is the question on the story that matters for your audience?” she said.
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