VCC Magazine Winter 2018

Reporting on the Virginia General Assembly in the Digital Age By Megan Schiffres

During last year’s legislative session, the Virginia General Assembly considered 2,959 bills in the span of just 45 days. Of those they considered, only 836 would eventually be enacted into law. For reporters covering the Capital, keeping up with the fast-paced and ever- evolving landscape of Virginia’s state government can be a real challenge. “The big problem covering the General

Assembly is there’s so many committee meetings happening at the same time, you can’t get every single one,” said Graham Moomaw, political reporter for the Richmond Times Dispatch . Over the course of the session, not only does the House and Senate convene every workday to conduct the business of lawmaking, but the 25 committees and 38 subcommittees within the General Assembly meet regularly to deliberate on thousands of bills and resolutions, most of which will never make it to the floor. In the past, political reporters had to pick a promising meeting to attend and simply hope that they weren’t’ missing anything newsworthy across the hall, but recent efforts by both the state and non- governmental groups to increase transparency in the General Assembly have expanded electronic access to the inner workings of the Capital. “InVirginia’s General Assembly, the vast majority of deliberations and debate really happens in subcommittee and committee and that’s also the only place that the legislature will take public comment or testimony on any of these proposals,” said Anna Scholl, Executive Director of Progress Virginia. “Whatever bill it is, it’s important to someone and the decision on that bill and any discussion of it should be available to everyone.” Last year, live streams of the floor proceedings in both the House and Senate were made available to the public via the Virginia General Assembly website, virginiageneralassembly.gov, and this session the state also started live-streaming regular committee meetings. Live- streaming of subcommittee meetings isn’t available through the General Assembly, but Progress Virginia's transparency project, Eyes on Richmond, plans to live-stream every subcommittee meeting on the hill to their own website, eyesonrichmond.org . “Having these feeds available, being able to just sit at home first thing when you wake up and just watch it is going to be huge in terms of just making the flow of the day easier,” Moomaw said. Even with electronic access to committee and subcommittee meetings, more happens in a day at the Capital than any single person or news organization could possibly report on. So, political journalists like Moomaw must use digital strategies and tools to organize and prioritize their coverage of the General Assembly. Many rely on the Legislative Information System, or LIS, to stay informed on the current status and future plans of the General Assembly. LIS is an online database produced by the state government which tracks the activity of the General Assembly. It provides reporters with a complete, up-to-date list on the status of every bill and resolution before each chamber, and contains legislative records of each session since 1994. LIS is also where reporters can find the meeting schedules of committees and subcommittees, in addition to the daily legislative agenda. However, politics isn’t confined to the halls of the General Assembly Building. Much, if not most of the legislative process is decided by influences outside the actual work of governing, such as elections, lobbying, and fundraising. Reporters looking to go deeper than the surface of a political story can use nonpartisan information resources like the Virginia Public Access Project, or VPAP, and Ballotpedia to investigate some of the other factors which impact Virginia’s state government.

Rob Oldham, a staff writer on Ballotpedia’s State Legislatures Project, says that unofficial influencers are an essential piece to political reporting, because they provide readers with the context in which a political event occurs. “They’re a big part of the story and they’re not always included. It’s really just about getting to a deeper level of understanding with our readership and letting them have a bigger picture of what’s going on, aside from what happens in the ballot box and what happens in the public view,” Oldham said. Sites like VPAP and Ballotpedia are valuable tools for reporters looking for information on what lawmakers have done in the past, but for view of what’s happening now with Virginia’s legislators, there’s no substitute for social media. For journalists covering politics on any level, Twitter can be used to interact directly with policymakers, find new stories to pursue, and connect with constituents. “In an age in which our president makes lots of policy pronouncements via Twitter, reporters really need to be on their game when it comes to social media,” said Jeff South, Editor of Capital News Service. Reporters can use Twitter to both monitor the activity of lawmakers and engage in the digital political discussion themselves. According to Moomaw, being active on Twitter is essential to the reporting process because it’s how most people consume their news today. “Everybody wants to know what’s happening now, so if you’re not live-tweeting it, you’re kind of behind the game,” said Moomaw. Moomaw says the trick to Twitter is to avoid getting so sucked into the digital conversation that you neglect the more foundational aspects of journalism. For those, he says there are no digital substitutions. “There’s so much stuff happening and so many people are doing press conferences and trying to say this is what you should write about today, that you kind of have to maintain a level of detachment and decide what’s important to you,” Moomaw said. Megan Schiffres is a professional journalist experienced in state government, culture, and arts coverage. She is a senior journalism student at Virginia Commonwealth University and currently works as a reporter and editorial assistant for the Public Relations Department of the College of Humanities and Sciences.

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V irginia C apitol C onnections , W inter 2018

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