Covering Meetings

A reporter's life sometimes seems like an endless series of meetings. But those meetings are sources of many bread-and-butter stories.

If you have never covered one, you will probably feel ill at ease the first few times. Here is some advice that will help keep you from feeling lost.

Before You Go

When your editor gives you an assignment for a meeting, start getting ready. Begin by asking the editor everything he knows.

Who's meeting, where, when, what's expected to happen, what sort of story does the editor want? Often the editor knows quite a bit and can fill you in on background, personalities and other information.

But not always. Sometimes the editor may know only that some group is meeting, and it's up to you find out the rest.
In either case, after you have milked the editor of all you can get, start checking other sources:

• Read the clips if there are any. In the case of a public body, you can read the minutes of recent meetings.
  
• Find out who is running the meeting or who is closely involved. Ask that person to tell you what issues are expected to come up at the meeting, who is expected to talk. Get names and phone numbers. If a public body is holding the meeting, you can ask for a copy of the agenda.
  

Let's say the editor wants you to cover a meeting of the Potroast Neighborhood Association. The editor doesn't know much, beyond the time and place of the meeting, but tells you the name and number of the group's president, Leonard Mugwump.

You call Mugwump and he gives you a rundown: The group is going to talk about 1) supporting the school band at Potroast Junior High (needs uniforms), 2) getting safety improvements at the railroad crossing, 3) solving the terrible problem of failing septic tanks in the neighborhood, 4) watching out for signs of gang activity (a sheriff's deputy is going to give a talk about this). Mugwump tells you the group will elect new officers, but this is pretty cut and dried; he gives you the names of the new slate.

Now you can gather a lot of information. You can call the principal or band leader at the school and find out how many uniforms are needed, the costs, and so on. You can call the railroad and see what it says about how and whether it can improve the crossing. You could talk to local or state transportation people, too. You can talk with neighborhood residents and with county officials about the septic problems. You can talk with the deputy about the gang problem.

The more information you have in advance, the easier it will be to cover the meeting. Make it a point to note addresses and phone numbers of people you might need to reach after the meeting for additional comment and clarification.

Of course, you may not have time to do all of this. You may decide to concentrate on one or two main points and let the rest slide until the meeting.
It's a matter of how important the story is and what other demands there are on your time.
But the more preparation you do, the better.

Once you have learned all you can, you are ready to go to the meeting. In fact, you may be ready to write a story right now-an advance to let people know the meeting is coming up and what the issues are.

Such a story might begin like this:

Residents of Potroast want relief from an embarrassing and unhealthy problem-their septic tanks are failing.
Mabel Mushwit says the problem has been growing for five years, and she and other residents ... blah ... blah.
Mushwit and her neighbors will talk about the situation at Thursday's meeting of the Potroast Neighborhood Association. The group will meet at 7 p.m. in the Potroast Community Center ... blah and blah.

Going To The Meeting

Go early. That way you have time to size up the place and decide where you will sit. Tip: Sit where you have a good chance to see and hear the speakers, and where you can get up quietly and slip out if you need to collar somebody for some additional information. An aisle seat can be handy. Going early also gives you a chance to meet Leonard Mugwump (until now he has just been a voice on the phone) and others who might help you.

Observe, report, don't participate. Save your questions until you can catch people during breaks or outside the meeting or after the meeting. Don't interrupt the proceedings, and try not to be drawn into them. Sometimes, especially with groups that aren't used to having reporters present, people will ask you questions during the meeting. Or they may even try to tell you what to put in your story and what to leave out.

If this happens, be polite but say something such as: "I'm just here to report on your meeting, not to participate. I'll be glad to talk with you later."

If the person insists, for example, that you leave something out of a story, say: "I'm sorry, but all I can do is pass your request on to my editor; I'll be glad to do that."

Usually, this is enough to get the spotlight off you and back onto the meeting. If the worst happens, and the people still insist on telling you how to do your job, you have a choice, depending on whether the meeting is being held by a public body or a private group.

If it is a public body, simply stand your ground. The board can accept your presence or it can declare the meeting closed to the public (which may be a violation of state law on open meetings).

If it is a meeting of a private group, you can say: "I'm sorry I can't agree to your conditions. Do you want me to leave?"

This problem is rare, but it does happen once in a while.

Take plenty of notes. You don't know what you will need until later. If it isn't in your notebook when you need it, you're sunk. If it is in your notes and it turns out you don't need it, no problem … leave it out of the story.

An editor I know is bemused by correspondents who think they have a lot of notes when they have filled seven pages in a steno pad. Seven pages? That is hardly enough notes, the editor says, to write a brief, let alone a decent story. She's right. Unless you take complete notes, you're going to have a thin story with embarrassing holes.
It's also a good idea to take a tape recorder. It's a good backup, especially for checking quotations.

Get in the habit of flagging things in your notes that aren't clear. Write down questions you will need to get answered. Jot down names and check the spellings.

Let's say Joe Finkelstein stands up at the meeting and talks about his septic-tank problems. You don't know him from Adam (that's Adam Finkelstein, two blocks over, a cousin). All you hear is somebody calls him "Joe." But you want to use his quotes. Maybe you'll get a chance to catch him in the hall and either get your questions answered or get his number and ask if you can call him after the meeting. If that fails, after the meeting ask Leonard Mugwump, "Who was that guy Joe?"

You can't be in two places at once, so you will have to use some judgment. If you need to catch someone for a quick interview, you'll have to decide whether it's more important to do that now or to stay in your seat and take notes on what's happening next. (This is when the tape recorder can help).

While you are making notes about things to clarify, be sure you include jargon and "insider" talk that readers may not understand. As a reporter, your job is to translate this into plain English. Merely passing it on isn't good enough.

Note: Never stick a technical term or piece of jargon in a story and defend it by saying "that's what they called it" when the editor asks you what the hell it means. Editors hate to hear that non-answer.

Pay attention to the emotional atmosphere and the crowd reactions. Sometimes this makes the difference between a lively story and a dry one. If there is anger or excitement, let the story reflect it.caution: Use your own judgment about what you see and hear. Don't be misled by someone else's opinions. For example, if people at the meeting get excited about an issue, perhaps readers will be interested, too. Certainly you should think about that. But sometimes, as the bard would have it, the arguments may be much ado about nothing. You have to decide what is newsworthy.

There is an opposite side to this coin: Sometimes significant action is taken with little comment, especially in meetings of public boards. Somebody makes a motion to adopt Item 6 on the agenda, a bored voice seconds the motion and the board votes "yea" without dissent. The whole thing seems perfunctory and unimportant. But when you look closely at Item 6, you may find that the board has just approved a profound change that will affect people's lives. Why was this done so casually? Maybe because all the shouting had been done in earlier meetings, or maybe the board members had hashed it out in private. However it happened, the action is significant in itself and the fact that it was made to seem routine doesn't change its news value. If you're not alert, significant news can slip by you.

Nowadays, public boards often have a list of items on a "consent agenda,'' which is usually approved routinely. The items are put on the consent agenda because they are expected to pass without debate. Most of them are likely to be routine, but the list may include some stingers.

Look for ideas. A good reporter is alert not only to get the information for the story on the meeting, but also for ideas for spinoff stories. Almost any meeting is good for ideas. In the story on the Potroast meeting, for example, you may not end up using much about the school band. It needs uniforms, remember? You might sum it up with a paragraph. But you can follow up next week with a nice feature story about the band and its struggles.

Likewise, you might not have room in the story to do much with the speech by the sheriff's deputy on teen gangs. But you can follow up with a feature story on how this and other neighborhoods are dealing with the problem, or on how the Sheriff's Department is coordinating with neighborhoods.
The possibilities are plentiful.

After The Meeting

When the meeting breaks up, don't join the stampede to the parking lot-unless your deadline leaves you no choice.
Stick around a few minutes. This is your chance to grab people and get your questions cleared up. This may be a good time to get reactions from people to what somebody said in the meeting.

This is especially helpful in getting to know people who may become good sources in the future. And sometimes people let their hair down after a meeting and tell you things that are more interesting than what they said at the meeting itself.

Speaking of reactions, don't neglect to call people who weren't at the meeting. You are never restricted to reporting only what happened in the meeting. You can put anything in the story that is pertinent, whether you got it from the meeting or elsewhere.

Let's say several speakers criticized a county official for not helping them with the sewage problem. That official wasn't at the meeting. Call him and get his response. First, this will help make your story complete, and, second, it's only fair.

A reporter's job is to help readers understand the news. It isn't enough to merely report actions and speech-a story must provide context and meaning. A simple example: If a public board changes a tax rate or a fee, you need to tell readers what that will cost them. To do that, you may need to get information from sources outside the meeting.
When you have done all this, you are ready to write a story (or stories) about the big doings at the Potroast Neighborhood Association.