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“The location of the live shot for a television report does not really matter. The question is the content of the information,” the reporter said. “[Bob] Woodward and [Carl] Bernstein were never in the White House covering [President] Nixon, and they had the most explosive stories on the Nixon administration.”
Lean on sourcing
A loss of physical access to the people reporters cover isn’t negligible, said the Washington correspondent, but in response, journalists should turn to what they do best: sourcing.
“We can reach sources any time of day and night, anywhere they are,” the Washington correspondent explained, noting that news outlets banned from the White House have still been able to cover consequential stories about the Trump administration.
“Institutions are made up of people. You got to find the people who have the information and get them to give it to you,” he said. “Your telephone is the best resource you’ve got. Just keep making calls.”
He pointed out that press briefings are not the setting where original reporting often occurs. “You can get the administration’s statements on something, their comments, their reactions to world events, but you’re not going to do any exclusive reporting anyways,” he said.
“They [access bans] throw some sand in the gears of that process [of reporting], but they are not going to stop that process from happening,” he stressed.
Use the coverage out there
Not being present at the summit affected Asheville Watchdog’s reporting by preventing them from gathering information or hearing reactions to their concerns from officials, Stowe said.
“All we could do is to read the coverage that was coming out from other media. We had to find alternative sources, look for documents, go to livestreams,” he said.
Stowe pointed to a separate instance in which Asheville Watchdog covered a closed-door meeting of an out-of-town company that runs the local hospital system. News outlets weren’t invited and the outlet just “found out about the meeting after the fact,” he said.
“But they livestreamed the meeting, so we went back and watched the livestream. We called up the people who were there,” he said. “Even though we reported on it a week later, it was the first time our readers were hearing about it.”
Don’t be afraid to reach out to other media outlets. During the G20 finance summit, Stowe’s team contacted other reporters who were in the room to identify the number of media representatives permitted access as part of their reporting on the outlet’s own access denial.
That said, journalists shouldn’t rely on other outlets to report their own stories, Stowe noted.
The Washington correspondent also cautioned against relying on other outlets to get the interviews they need or raise the questions reporters want asked. “It’s a very competitive industry, and I think everybody needs to do their best on their own,” he said.
Write about it
Writing the story about the access denial is important, Stowe stressed, as audiences often falsely believe that denials and bans affect only national, rather than local, media.
“When we got denied [from the G20] … we heard that other larger national organizations were denied, so suddenly we were like we just needed to get this out there and write about it,” he said.
“We’ve got a very positive response from the community,” he added. “Our readers believe in what we’re doing, so when they see us not getting access, it causes them to ask questions and show support.”
Stowe recommended that other outlets “start asking earlier” about press credentials so that they don’t get the news that their access was denied at the last minute. He also encouraged journalists to get the denial documented and come up with alternative reporting plans.
“The best practice is figuring out who gets access and whether the rules are applied consistently,” he added.
Newsrooms should also prepare a quick communication strategy and a plan for how to respond to an access denial, he pointed out. “Come up with a plan for how you’re going to react, how you might report it, what questions you need to ask,” he said.
Don’t compromise on values
Stowe said that his outlet “is holding up strong journalistic principles” despite the backlash it’s experienced from government agencies.
He cited an in-depth piece that Asheville Watchdog had published ahead of the G20 summit, which outlined the upcoming meetings, discussed recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, and raised hard questions about the level of federal funding and support the region was receiving.
“I cannot draw a straight line [between the piece and the denial], but it seems as if the administration was picking media outlets that it thought were going to result in favorable coverage,” he said.
He stressed that affected outlets should continue to fight for all forms of access until it is granted. In one instance, Asheville Watchdog kept pursuing a lawsuit over a public record denial even long after the story was over and they didn’t need the records anymore.
“We think we’re going to get the records very soon, and we’ll write a story saying that the court granted us these records and that they were held back from us illegally,” Stowe said.
“We’re going to ask hard questions and hold people accountable. We’re not going to stop doing that. We’re not going to apologize for writing stories,” he said.
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