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So we don’t seek to grandstand but we don’t shy away from asking tough questions either.
What advice do you have for journalists interacting with combative government officials?
Wright: Be firm in your questions and stand by your reporting. It’s never stupid. If you have the information to back it up and have done your homework to know the issue inside and out, no one can take that away from you.
It’s also important to keep an open mind — you may have one piece of the story but you may not have it all.
And lastly, try to have some grace! Don’t accept disrespect and speak your mind if you feel it, but the officials who you talk to on a daily basis typically have someone to answer to, too. So sometimes, their response isn’t even about you.
President Trump has signed 165 executive orders since taking office five months ago. How do you decide what to focus on each day? What are your go-to resources for staying up to date on the latest issues?
McMorris-Santoro: One of the greatest things about NOTUS is we have this staff of fellows who are bringing new energy and approaches to journalism. I asked them for help on this.
Emily Kennard mentioned DCInbox.com, a project that collects and collates all the public statements congressional offices send out, “to keep up with what lawmakers are talking about, not just on X,” she explains. Nuha Dolby loves Data Is Plural, which collects published datasets around the internet. John T. Seward regularly checks OAF Nation on IG, which collects investigative reporting on global conflict. (This is war fighter-focused news, and he warns: “There's a lot of dark humor memes” that might offend civilians.)
My take is that not enough people are talking about Major Garrett’s show on CBS News 24/7, the free streaming network. This is a deeply wonky, plugged in, and intelligent show that is always informative and entertaining. It’s a real politics news show in a world where that term has come to mean “well-paid pundits yelling at each other.”
Wright: The easiest way to answer this question is: It depends! Sometimes we are following the news cycle because it’s important and necessary to keep our readers informed.
Unlike other outlets, we aren’t beholden to the news cycle. We have the bandwidth to march to our own beat and report out our stories in a deeper way. As a result, people come to us not only when they want to know more about an issue that’s dominating the headlines — and why they should care — but also when they want to know something new that no one else has.
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