I prefer complete transparency, and would thus prefer to see each and every hearing held in public and televised on C-SPAN.
Republican politicians pretend that that's what they're all about too. For example, on Wednesday, a bunch of them tried to achieve "desegregating the Woolworth's lunch counter" optics by crashing a House Intelligence Committe deposition of DoD official Laura Cooper.
I can sympathize, but only so far. They aren't really after transparency, they're after a circus. If the hearings were open, their tune would change to public yawning and urging everyone to move on -- "nothing to see here."
If I had to pick the biggest reason why the initial hearings are closed, it would be this:
If they're closed, the committee chairs and Nancy Pelosi maintain a certain amount of initial control over the narrative instead of handing it over to lunatics like, say, Maxine Waters. That lets them dial down expectations to a certain degree, and also increase suspense.
A secondary reason (one that Democrats have offered up) is that closed hearings make it a smidgen harder for the people being subpoenaed to coordinate their testimonies in advance. Just a smidgen (there's nothing to stop these people from talking to each other), but at least they can't hear what was actually said and prepare their own answers to match.
