CWA Gets a Washington Perspective

June, 2001

The Washington, D.C., setting for the Construction Writers Association's annual meeting provides access to a host of informative speakers, as this year's May meeting again affirmed.

The program kicked off with a panel discussion on how to make news in the Washington market. Participants were Martin Tolchin, founder and publisher of The Hill, a weekly newspaper that reports and analyzes the actions of Congress; Steve Eldridge, an on-air reporter for Washington radio station WTOP; Kathy Kiely, congressional reporter for USA Today.; and Jan Tuchman, editor-in-chief of Engineering News-Record and 2001-2 president of CWA.

Two recurring themes that echoed through each panelist's remarks: know the intended audience and communicate more effectively by infusing the information disseminated with a human dimension. For example, motorists don't care as much about the number of yards of concrete that will be used in a highway project as they do about how the improvement will affect their daily lives, Eldridge noted.

Tolchin said associations can generate news by publicizing their positions on public policy and relating them to issues under consideration by Congress.

Eldridge, WTOP's "sprawl and crawl" reporter, is one of the few broadcast reporters to cover the related beats of traffic and development. He said he receives at least 600 faxes daily and regards only a few as worth pursuing.

Kiely became a Washington correspondent in 1981 and has covered news from both a national and a regional perspective. She cited the differing information needs of reporters with national and regional beats. Kiely advised news sources not to ignore suburban papers and to be aware of the needs of publications with zoned regional editions.

Tuchman, a longtime ENR editor who was recently named to its top editorial post, stressed the importance of candor in dealing with media representatives. Avoiding the media is not the most beneficial response to a significant construction accident, she said. A better approach is to disclose what can be said initially, with a promise that updates will be provided as reliable information becomes available.

In another session, Congressman Gary Miller (R-California), discussed the "Building a Better America" caucus, which he chairs. The group, whose objective is to increase awareness of building and construction issues, consists of 14 pro-construction House members. Miller, a former developer, said he was motivated to enter politics by the goal of restraining the government's heavy-handed involvement in the industry. "As a home builder in Southern California, I noticed that each year seemed to bring more laws and regulations that require compliance," he said. "The construction industry is larger than the automotive and steel industries combined, but a lot of my colleagues don't fully understand how the laws they pass can impact it," he declared.

John Scofield, communications director for the House Appropriations Committee, gave CWA members an insight into the Congressional budget negotiations the preceding night, during which the discovery of "missing" pages resulted in postponement of final action until the following week.

A speaker representing the Bush Administration was Chet Lunner, the U.S. Department of Transportation's director of public affairs. He characterized Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta as extremely knowledgeable about transportation issues and said that Mineta, who oversees 11 modes of transportation, is committed to intermodal solutions that will promote coordination among individual modes.

An overview of economic conditions was provided by Jay Bryson, an economist with Charlotte, NC-based First Union Corp. He emphasized that the non-residential construction industry is operating at record volume and should not be severely impacted by the current economic slowdown, assuming it is short-lived. Bryson expects non-residential construction volume to decline by 2.5 percent in this year's fourth quarter, and by 5 percent in the first quarter of 2002. But construction should not be as adversely affected as it was during the 1991 downturn, when the market was severely overbuilt. A low inflation rate and the federal budget surplus increase the likelihood that the economy's decline will be shallow, Bryson said.

A highlight of the CWA program was a tour of the Washington office of architect/engineer SmithGroup, which included a computer-aided design demonstration and a briefing on the firm's current work. One of these projects is the National Museum of the American Indian, which is under construction on the National Mall.

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