By JON HILSENRATH
The Federal Reserve's first ever public press conference will be a carefully choreographed affair.
What would be mundane matters for most other institutions—such as who gets in, how Chairman Ben Bernanke should kick things off, and how questions will be asked—have potentially market-moving importance in this instance and require planning.
Take the issue of Mr. Bernanke's opening statement. When he stands before reporters Wednesday at 2.15 p.m., a little less than two hours after the committee's statement is released, he will likely make only a brief opening comment before jumping into questions. The goal is to kick things off without a long monologue that might distract investors from what the policy making Federal Open Market Committee says in its official post-meeting statement before the briefing.
Mr. Bernanke will try to emphasize summing up the decision and thinking of the broad consensus of the FOMC, which consists of 12 regional Fed bank presidents and the current five Fed board governors, rather than his own thoughts. In all, he'll talk for about 45 minutes.
Who gets in requires advanced planning. There isn't a hedge fund manager who wouldn't like to be there, nor a fair share of financial bloggers. To keep the press conference manageable, Fed officials decided to limit attendance to individuals who represent news organizations accredited by Congress and only one per organization. That leaves it open to potentially hundreds of news organizations, including newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times, foreign press, television, radio stations and magazines.
Then there is the matter of how questions get asked. Mr. Bernanke has taken questions from the media twice before at the National Press Club. On both occasions, reporters wrote down questions on cards and a moderator from the media chose which ones to ask. This news conference will be more traditional and less confining—hands will go up, the chairman or his staff will call upon reporters and the questioning will begin. Reporters might get a chance to ask follow-ups.
Mr. Bernanke will of course prep beforehand on what he thinks might be asked, as he does before congressional briefings, but he doesn't get advanced notice on what reporters are going to ask.
The Fed's meeting will conclude a bit earlier than usual, and the central bank will put out its formal policy statement at 12:30 p.m., rather than at 2:15 p.m., as had been the custom previously. The press conference kicks off at 2:15 p.m. At that time, the Fed also will release its updated forecasts for the economy, something investors in the past only learned about in the minutes released three weeks after a meeting.
The forecasts will look like part of the minutes of the FOMC meeting, which includes projections for 2011, 2012 and 2013 and the longer-run. The forecasts will be broken down as the Fed usually does—showing the highest and lowest forecasts for growth, unemployment and inflation, and also what the Fed calls the central tendency, which excludes the three highest and three lowest forecasts.
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