Fixated on Chris Cillizza
By Jacey Wilkins
On November 11, 2008, Washington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza was the first web journalist to be selected as a White House correspondent. He is considered one of the top Beltway journalists and has become a near celebrity in his reporting on the recent presidential campaign and election. However, most weekends and evenings, Cillizza eschews his TV-ready tie to stand in the frigid rain and watch his wife coach the Catholic University Field Hockey Team. In fact, in the past four years, he has only missed three games.
Since he started to write The Fix for washingtonpost.com in October of 2005, Cillizza has earned high acclaim in the burgeoning climate of web-based reporting. The blog focuses on presidential and congressional politics, but Cillizza aims to simplify his reporting to the bare, palpable basics of the who, what, and why. His colloquial, but adroit analysis has awarded him television appearances on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News Channel.
Cillizza migrated to the political Mecca of Washington from a small town in New England. Born in Marlborough, Connecticut in 1976, he graduated from the private Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor in 1994. Cillizza was never on the fast-track to journalism. He graduated from Georgetown University in 1998 with a B.A. in English, having, in his words, “no clue” what he wanted to do. For three years during college, Cillizza worked for George Will, a Pulitzer Prize winning political columnist for the Washington Post and Newsweek. After graduation, Will got him a job with Charlie Cook, a well-known political analyst in the District who ran the Cook Political Report. Cillizza humbly admits that he worked from the ground up, initially answering phones and getting coffee, but quickly realizing his passion for politics. Cook proved to be a pivotal mentor in his career, and in 2001, gave Cillizza a column of his own. His column soon earned high regard for his reporting of the governors and southern House races of 2001.
Cillizza decided he wanted to be a full-fledged reporter and accepted a job at Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Congress and Capitol Hill. For the next four years, Cillizza says that he worked to establish a reporting persona that
would set him apart from other political bloggers–a persona the Huffington Post has recently defined as
enthusiastic and prolific. In 2005, washingtonpost.com offered Cillizza a position as writer of
The Fix, the new political weblog focused on electoral politics. In 2008, Cillizza provided comprehensive coverage of the presidential campaigns, and his reporting often won mentions in the Huffington Post, the Daily Kos, and Politico.
Because The Fix had not existed before he joined the Post, Cillizza was able to contour it to take on his distinct tone: “hilariously omniscient,” as he jokes. According to Cillizza, the resources of the Internet and the constant interactivity it affords him with his readership, jumpstarted his career. Within three years of the Fix’s birth in 2005, it has become a go-to source for transparent analysis of presidential politics. Cillizza says that they key to success in writing a blog is the author’s ability to put forth his or her unique sensibility and personality in an intellectual, legitimized format. “Define the universe of what you want to write about, and try and push it beyond what everybody else does.”
Cillizza and his wife, Gia, are expecting their first child in February.
Cillizza discusses his craft in the following question and answer.
Q: What made you pursue the web-media aspect of journalism?
A: They offered me a job. It was very hard to find jobs in journalism at that point. The Post wasn't really hiring, the Times wasn't really hiring.
Q: Do you think it's the other way around now?
A: Now, no one is hiring.
Q: Did you have an idea of what you wanted to accomplish when you got the job at the Washington Post?
A: I thought it offered me an opportunity to have fun and do something different. I was brought in to write The Fix. It hadn't existed before, but we had had the idea to do it. It was something that was my own, which was appealing.
Q: Were you able to decide on the content yourself? How much of it came from editorial?
A: In the beginning, more came from editorial. It was mostly because we didn't know what it was going to be. That's the other thing. We were still trying to figure out what it would be, what it would look like, what we would focus on, and if anyone would read it, that being the most important unknown. So, we experimented. I didn't always have the freedom I currently have, which is that I can write about whatever I want whenever I want, but I've always had a fair amount of freedom.
Q: Who is your loyal following would you say, or do you know?
A: Lots of people email me and follow me on Facebook and Twitter.
Q: So in a lot of ways, the Internet has jumpstarted your career?
A: Yes. The web allows for and encourages more personality-driven pieces, and I was able to attract a following because people were interested in what I was writing not necessarily where I was writing it. The web encourages this kind of individuality. The TV that I've done, the things that I've gotten to do for MTV etc. are more a function of the fact that I was something different. But, that was very fortuitous. I'd like to tell you I plotted that out, but I didn't.
Q: In terms of your reporting, do you follow a particular process?
A: It's different depending on what you’re writing for. At a newspaper, you usually have a beat, so you get to know the people on that beat, and when something happens on that beat, you write about it. It's a little bit easier in its way, because you are confined to a beat. The web is not like that; it is like a survey course versus a specific kind of course. You have to figure out what is interesting to you, because the reality is that The Fix can be anything. If anyone else took it over, it would be totally different.
Q: What do you mean?
A: A lot of it is your own sensibility—what you are interested in—and then what you are interested in, hopefully some readers are too. First of all, you have to define the universe of what you want to write about, because writing a political blog, you could write about anything.
Q: So, what is your “universe”?
A: I've narrowed it down over time to what I like. I do a lot of analysis now, and because I've been around it long enough, I have a fair amount of opinions of what I think about things—hopefully informed opinions. I talk to smart people and bounce it off of them, get their thoughts on it, but in some ways, the hardest part of being a reporter is not where I am now, but where I was ten years ago. You don't know anybody when you start out, so people won't tell you stuff. Now where I am, people tell you stuff. I don't really have to worry about it. I worried about it a lot when I started, but now, the stories sort-of just come. Because my options are so broad in terms of what I can write about, it makes it a lot easier. Now I don’t have to scrounge for stories.
Q: How do you interview someone?
A: If you’re doing a long, magazine-like profile, then you have to spend a significant amount of time with that person and the people they know well. The problem with any profile of a known entity is that you're going to get a lot of boiler plate nonsense that everybody else has. The goal is to try to find people that other people haven't found. The key to reporting, in general, is making sure you talk to people that other reporters don't talk to. If you're doing a story on a member of Congress, for example, you always want to try and push it beyond what everyone else does. Because otherwise, especially now in the web-world, people can find that stuff anywhere. The AP does a really good job of reporting what happened and why, so I think you have to think creatively about exceeding that.
Q: How did you feel about all of the sensationalized technology during election night?
A: I didn’t mind it. In the end, we, as journalists, are just trying to get people to look at what we do. However you go about that, I support. Ultimately, whether people tune into CNN because they want to see a hologram of Jessica Yellin or not, they’re still tuning in. We do gimmicky stuff on The Fix, like caption contests, because the goal is to involve people.
Q: Is that why you have a Twitter feed and do Facebook and MySpace?
A: Yes, and also why I do TV. Ultimately, you're trying to reach people wherever they are, and broaden out the product and interest in what you're doing.
Q: Do you think that, in turn, makes journalism more democratic?
A: Yes, absolutely. The growth of things like Google news has forced mainstream journalists to be more accessible. People want reporters to say: “this is what I look like, here’s how I do a story, or here’s what my wife does for a living.” People expect some level of access to this now. It’s easy with what I do because I can write about whatever I want, be it my mom, my wife, or Georgetown basketball.
Q: Do you think readers react more positively to this more personalized channel of information?
A: I think people do react to it positively. We’ve had very good reactions to it based on various “fan sites”. Over 4,000 people follow me on Twitter, and I don’t know how many friends I have on Facebook. I’m not sure how much those things are real measures of how many people are into it, but it does show that there is an audience of people who are interested in consuming what I’m putting out there and who want to know more about me. My theory of journalism has always been that transparency in reporting actually helps the journalist in the end. The less transparency we have, the more suspicious people are of our reporting. If you show what’s behind a curtain, you’ll see a bunch of reporters doing their jobs, not special meetings deciding what the convention results are going to be.
Q: Recently, there has been a lot of controversy about the advent of web-media and blogging as legitimate sources of information because of the lack of policing. Do you think it’s myopic to disregard all of the transparency of journalism and all of the interactivity that blogging creates?
A: It’s myopic also because “blogging” is a transmission vehicle. It’s like saying “all newspapers are X.” A blog is just a medium by which things are printed. There are lots and lots of kinds of blogs, like partisan blogs or reporting-driven blogs filtered through larger news sources like the Washington Post. I just think people don’t get the fact that a blog is not a defined thing, but a way in which people present and consume information. I think that maybe the word “blog” or the technology is too new and people picture a blogger as a jobless somebody sitting in their basement. I’m sure there are people who are like that, but there are also opinioned journalists from mainstream media who are doing blogs. It doesn’t make sense to try and fit what a blog is into one category, and I think people are operating under an outdated notion of what it is.
Q: Is there much of a distinction between Washington Post and washingtonpost.com in terms of the actual journalism?
A: There is no distinction. For us or for any regular news organization, there is zero difference. Any difference would be deadly for what we do because ultimately, the reason people read me is because they trust that I am right with my information. That is the same reason they read the Post.
Q: What will your new job as the White House correspondent entail?
A: It’s really an honor. I’m the first web-person to be a correspondent. I think it will be fun. In truth, I’ll still be doing a lot of what I’ve already done. It will just be more focused on the White House rather than the campaign.
Q: Are you going to bring a lot of the web to that, for instance more videos and more multi- media?
A: Yes. I want to do more web-video features, because I think that people like to be brought behind the curtain. I think that is especially true when it comes to everything at the White House. I always think of my parents: My dad’s a teacher, my mom works in HR. They don’t have the opportunity to go into the White House press room and ask questions or see what it’s like to fly on Air Force One. So, I think part of my job now as a political journalist is to say things like “Barack Obama won because of X today,” but I also think part of the job is also to say “here’s what it looks like when you’re traveling, here are the people who you should know, here’s what I’ve been thinking about.” What we do is humanizing because people want that. I don’t think they just want the facts anymore. They want to know how many seats there are on Air Force One and who sits where. They want to know what a White House press-briefing room looks like and where the reporters stand. I’m going to try to do all of that.
Q: What does the fact that they hired a web-based journalist say about the transforming state of political journalism?
A: Political journalism is one of the last vestiges of “the old school,” and there are a lot of people who still want to hold the newspaper. So, change doesn’t come rapidly, but the fact that they named me is a really good sign. My attitude has been that we will try things as they go along, and change them if necessary. We have a broad enough audience that we can do this. It doesn’t have to be set in stone. My whole goal is to have as many people consume my stuff as possible.
Q: So you’re saying it can’t dictate the direction of your writing?
A: Exactly. I’ve reached the point now where I can do some stuff that I really enjoy doing.
Q: Because you have that loyal following?
A: Yes. They will read it because they’re interested in what I have to say. They may not be interested in the Alaskan Senate race, but they’re interested in my thoughts about it.
Q: So how will your job change?
A: Well, it will entail more engagement with policy than I’ve had.
Q: Do you think that it helps to be writing in “real time,” where you could write four times a day if you really wanted to, as opposed to once a day or twice a week?
A: Yes, but I also think a lot of that has to do with metabolism. The one thing I’ve been gifted with is that I can write fast. Not always well, but fast. Again, the great thing about the Fix is that I’m able to mold it in my own image.
(Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Jacy Wilkins)
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Photo source: Getty Images for Meet the Press
