The World From the Hill

Ever wonder what it’s like on the other side?

If you’re a journalist, you never really get the chance to know the world your sources inhabit, outside of your own reporting. There’s not much opportunity to really see the source’s realm – where they make the decisions we write about and where they gripe behind closed doors about people like us – unless you’re willing to do what your colleagues and your conscience have always told you not to: Sell out, risk being tainted, and never come back.

Turns out, there are ways to experience those other worlds without setting fire to the bridge as you cross over, and to come back with your integrity and career intact. Along the way, it’s also possible to gain a whole new appreciation for what we do.

I’m a political reporter who spent most of last year working for a Democrat.  I spent the rest of the year covering other Democrats’ campaigns, and those of Republicans and Greens too, for my newspaper. Not once has anyone questioned it.

That’s because I had the chance, along with a few other colleagues from newspapers and television stations, to spend a year as a fellow with the American Political Science Association. 

In November 2005, we joined a diverse group of thirty fellows – including international scholars, diplomats and a twenty-year veteran of the CIA – who left jobs behind for ten months and worked instead for members of Congress.

The organization’s Congressional Fellowship Program pays a stipend to the journalists, so we didn’t have to take money from the government or anyone who works for it. I don’t think I would have been interested, otherwise. But accepting the fellowship did mean there was no way to avoid associating myself with people who have very public opinions about the issues I cover.

That made me nervous at first, and I wasn’t alone. The other reporters in the program worried, too, about lingering suspicions that prospective employers or future sources may have about our time working in Congress.  Neil H. Simon, a television reporter and producer who moved from Albuquerque to Washington for the fellowship, said he was relieved when people on Capitol Hill as well as colleagues in journalism seemed to get it.

“I realized under the umbrella of the fellowship, that this just sort of immunized me from any taint of partisan concerns,” he told me recently.

Still, we were careful to choose offices that wouldn’t brand us on the extreme wing of either party. Fellows seek out their own positions; the program doesn’t make assignments. We went looking for jobs in congressional offices just as anyone would, by submitting cover letters and resumes, but with the advantage that we could offer our services gratis. 

Though the association’s fellowship is the oldest on the Hill, it’s now one of several. Congressional offices are used to seeing fellows come and go and have grown accustomed to all the free, sometimes expert, help. But journalism fellows are a rare sort, and I encountered people who were puzzled and understandably wary.

Laura Kellams is a political reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, covering the legislature in Little Rock. Since she started at the paper in 1997, she has covered city government, regional affairs and courts. She lives in Fayetteville with her husband, Kyle, who is news director for KUAF, the University of Arkansas’ public radio station.