How Should We Cover Government Meetings?

If you're not a political junkie, you probably find most government meeting stories pretty boring. Sure, once in a while the city council or the planning commission tackles an issue close to your heart, but most of the time that's not the case.

I see coverage of these meetings as a civic responsibility, but I also feel the need to serve Hudson Patch users by giving them what they want. So, I'm asking all you users out there: is there a story format that you prefer for government meeting stories?

I'll touch on a few different types of stories below; let me know in the comments section what types you would find most compelling.

Live tweets

I could sit in the meeting and send a tweet (Twitter message of no more than 140 characters) about what happenes during key points in the meeting. I assume that deeply engaged political junkies would find this useful, but most users would find it annoying.

Live blog

I could start an article at the beginning of the meeting and update it live as things happen during the meeting. Perhaps I could post an update immediately after each agenda item is voted upon. Political junkies would be updated in real time and casual users could easily scan what happened after the fact.

Detailed narrative

This is what traditional newspapers have been doing for decades. The reporter attends the meeting, takes down notes on everything happening, and retires to an office to write up a complete story of everything that occurred at the meeting. Every debate and vote is captured. Though this is a good way to recreate the event for people who weren't there, I believe what users really want is someone to tell them just the really important stuff. 

Quick bits

This is the opposite of the detailed narrative. While the narrative article goes on and on possibly up to 1,000 words, the quick bits article is nothing more than a list of bullet points (kind of like this post), that quickly let you know the results of the meeting and what you need to know about the vote. Though it doesn't recreate the event in the same way the narrative article does, it can be reported more quickly and read more quickly by users as well.

Document dump

For every government meeting, there's a pile of public records that are created. Before the Internet, it was a hassle to get your hands on public records. You had to go to City Hall and request copies. Oftentimes you don't even know what you're entitled to as a member of the public. As a local news website, I'm able to post all the public records for each meeting. You can see the full meeting agenda, last meeting's minutes, the full wording of each resolution on the agenda, a complete list of expenditures, supporting documents that council members refer to while making procurement decisions and more. These records belong to the public, not the government. I can post them on my site, but would you even care to look over them?

Q&A

I could sit down with a key local government official before or after each meeting to discuss what's on the agenda and how he or she voted and why. This story type would give a more human element to the story, but it would be quite one-sided. 

Issue story

After the meeting is over, I could go out and do a complete story about the issue being discussed and incorporate into that story how the council or board voted on the matter. For example, I could do a story about school district enrollment projections, and incorporate into that story some of the details discussed at the last board of education meeting.

Video interview

This is very much like the Q&A format, except you can look into the politician's eyes while he or she is speaking. Also, there's nowhere to hide. It's easy to trust video when you see that the words are coming directly out of the official's mouth. Words on a screen attributed to an official aren't quite as trustworthy.

Meeting video

I could provide video coverage of the entire meeting, much like is done by River Channel and aired on Comcast cable. After the meeting, I could try to talk to some of the key members of the council or board for a sort of post-game interview about what just took place.