Citizen Journalists, Start Your Engines!

Bloggers and other citizen journalists have a new and exciting opportunity to find and shed light on stories the mainstream media are missing -- by combing through transcripts of recent Congressional oversight hearings. Without any fanfare, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has started posting preliminary transcripts of many of its hearings on its Web site, giving everyone a chance to pore through testimony and find news the MSM may have overlooked.

After four years during which virtually no administration officials were called to Capitol Hill to explain themselves, the new Democratic majority in January revived the tradition of closely examining executive branch activities, with House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman leading the charge. But with a few exceptions, you wouldn't know it from reading the paper or watching the news. One of the dirty little secrets of Washington journalism is that very few news organizations assign staff to cover anything but the most high-profile hearings and debates on Capitol Hill. As a result, few, if any, reporters show up for oversight hearings -- and those who do tend to leave early. Specialty publications may have more bodies on the Hill, but they tend to focus on the movement of bills through Congress rather than unrelated hearings. The legendary Washington Post investigative reporter (and fellow Nieman Watchdog blogger) Morton Mintz once told me some of his best stories came from sitting all the way through congressional hearings that other reporters had already left.

Like many other committees, the Oversight Committee has for quite a while posted the text of prepared statements on its Web site, along with a video of its full hearings. That was a great start. But the best stuff at these hearings tends to come out under questioning, not in opening statements. And slogging though an unindexed, untranscribed video is a thankless chore.

Major hearings are often transcribed in real-time by CQ Transcripts and the Federal News Service, but those are copyrighted works that are only available to those who pay for them or have a subscription to Nexis.

Up until now, it took more than six months for public-domain transcripts of most hearings to become available. They had to work their way through an arduous proofing and approval process before finally being published by the Government Printing Office.

But now, without any formal announcement, the House Oversight Committee has started Web-publishing the preliminary transcripts prepared by official stenographers as soon as they are available -- typically within a few days of the hearing. In other words, while the news is still fresh.

Let's hope other committees follow its lead.

Here, via Google, is a list of those hearings for which preliminary transcripts have been posted.

Here, for instance, is the transcript of a Nov. 8 hearing during which Stephen L. Johnson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was grilled about the EPA's position and current plans for addressing greenhouse gas emissions in light of its refusal to consider the global warming effects of massive coal-fired power plants proposed for the Western United States.

And here is the transcript of a Nov. 1 hearing on what committee chairman Henry Waxman called a "reckless" proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services to make major changes in federal Medicaid policy.

This is a great opportunity for citizen journalists to become Washington reporters. If you find some overlooked news in these or other transcripts, e-mail me your blog posts or your findings, and I'll try to make sure that they aren't overlooked as well.

Cross-posted from the Watchdog Blog at NiemanWatchdog.org.

Comments

[realitytrumpsbull]

I don't need to read a bunch of transcripts
to further develop an opinion on all of this,
Bush, in my view, knocked this country 3
trillion dollars further in debt. Well,
let's take a minute and talk about this
whole ugly thing called 'defense'. First off,
what are they defending us from, solvency?
Fuel efficiency? Nevermind your SUV, a US
Army tank burns 3GPM, thereabouts. 3 gallons
PER MILE. Fuel-guzzling beastie. Of course,
it weighs a lot, and nevermind the emissions,
pure death comes shooting out the back of
one of those. Oh, and then there's the Zoomies
with their black smog-spewing go-fast.
There's two generals, one Marine, one
Army, who warned us about this, one, Smedley Butler, and the other, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Look em up and read carefully.
Anyway, moral of the story is, you read all
the sunshine and the excuses and convoluted
explanations, and it all just feels....f­ake.
My opinion? Stay thy hand, fair knight, put
down the rifle, AND the religious literature,
'cause there's a bunch of frothy-mouthed
till-skimming bible-thumpers running around
in there, and let's review What Really Happened,
and how it happens that the CEO of Halliburton
(oil services) ends up in physical possession
of the ground under which there's all this
oil, and they're still trying to sell the
'democracy' angle. I'm sorry, I don't support
the war, because I think this party left OUR
Constitution behind a long time ago, kind
of failed to be true to the brand, and tried
to bullshit their way through it all.
Oh, and back to the bible-thumper thing:
Reference 'thou shalt not kill', and 'thou
shalt not bear false witness'. I think that
there should be an earnest discussion in
our Congress, while we still have one, about
that whole 'Congress shall make no law'
concerning religion. Those people had a
big hand in starting this whole thing, and
they need to have, like, a Jesus conference
or something, maybe consider the parable
of His Missing Sandal, etc...

[dclawyer06]

Ditto to what Sofia said, Froomkin is without a doubt the best thing the WaPo has going for it. Like an island of sanity and truth constantly buffeted by storm blasts of hot air from the Krauthammer's, Hiatts, Richard Cohens and David Broders'.
Eugene Robinson is great too.
Thanks Dan.

[sofia]

Dan. You are one in a million! When most journalists regurgitated the White House talking points, you were critical and objective. You were my sanity in a time when it seemed everyone was losing their minds to go to war. Bravo to you and Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. I look forward to your articles.

[sofia]

Dan, you are truly a one in a million journalist. I look forward to your articles in the Washington Post and you have been the only one besides Eugene Robinson who cuts through the BS and tells it like it is. It was refreshing to read your articles at a time when most journalists jumped on the war bandwagon. Most of them questioned nothing, you questioned everything and you did your homework. You brought sanity to our world and for that, I am extremely grateful. Please send this blog to David Gregory. He has truly sold himself for a little Kool aid and now he belittles the blogs. What a little man he has become! Kudos to you, Mr. Froomkin!

[mommadona]

Sounds like a plan...

ONWARD!