Reporters Tap Resources in Coverage of Oil Profit Hearings

The controversy of oil companies raking in high profits required business journalists to use expertise, preparation and resourcefulness in covering last week's Senate hearings.

The hearings called on oil company executives to respond to the industry's immense third-quarter profits attributed to soaring gas prices.

David Ivanovich, a business reporter for the Houston Chronicle, was one of several Washington, D.C.-based reporters who advanced and covered the hearings. For his stories, he interviewed lobbyists and lawmakers, and quoted Exxon Mobil CEO Lee Raymond from an appearance on CNBC.

It's difficult to reach such oil company executives, Ivanovich says, which makes it imperative for reporters on the beat to reach out to company middle managers and others outside of the company.

"Major oil companies are not the most open groups of people on the planet," says Ivanovich, who has covered energy and oil issue for several years with the Chronicle.

For his second-day piece on the hearings, Ivanovich interviewed Ken Stern, a source recommended by a colleague. Stern is familiar with the oil industry and was willing to talk candidly about it, Ivanovich says. He also is based in New York.

"It's important when you're covering Capitol Hill to try to get people outside of Washington to talk," Ivanovich says. They help answer the question: This is what the real world thinks.

Ivanovich's work was also aided by his experience on the beat. He is familiar with the sometimes arcane language that energy sector businesspeople use and has a solid understanding of the key issues, he says.

"These issues they're talking about are not really that new," he says. "It helps to have a little perspective in order to figure out who's saying something interesting, who's saying something unique and who's saying the same verbiage, the same chatter you've heard time after time."

Unfortunately for reporters and the public, the hearings featured much of the latter. They were not as dramatic as many people hoped, reporters say.

"I don't know that I consider this a big (story)", says Chris Isidore, a reporter for CNNMoney, who wrote three stories in the two weeks leading up to the hearings about the oil companies. "We've done energy stories which are probably a lot more important than this."

Isidore monitored the hearing by watching a feed from CNN cameras in his New York office. It was important to cover, he says, because it could still have an impact on the economy and the public. But that was not clear on Wednesday.

"This was not a story that had a lot of analysis or in-depth reporting," Isidore says. "This is just a 'who said what' story."

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism