The Blogosphere and Youth Coverage

A number of people have gotten in touch with me about my recent post on the Maine College Democrats (pretty much all of whom told me I was off base in at least some part of my critique), so I think a follow-up is in order.

On the Video:

It's been made clear to me that this video was intended for use solely at the Maine College Democrats fall convention, and it was used as an introduction to a speech by Congressman Allen (aka white dude in the video). As such, most of my critiques were off base. It's a high-quality video, intended purely as red meat to a small and highly motivated audience. It wasn't meant to convince anyone of anything, and was the right message for its targeted audience. It was great work by the person who put it together - I should hope to see material of that quality consistently from all progressive youth organizations throughout the 2008 cycle and beyond.

On the Blogopshere

It's been made clear to me that my final paragraph seemed to come out of nowhere and make little sense. That sucks - it was a rushed post in many respects and in hindsight it would have come out very differently (or not at all). So here's some more (hopefully coherent) thoughts.

The fact that MyDD, America Blog and SenateGuru 2008 all gave props to the Maine CDA video is a good thing on the whole. It is too infrequent that young organizers get credit in the blogosphere for their good work, and in so much as the quality of this video was so high, it deserves some praise.

So why did I write what I did?

My post was an overreaction to the fact that I hold fairly low (and well known) opinions about CDA and its work. Part of that is the fault of the DNC, part is the fault of those in the leadership of the organization (and to be honest, I'm not sure how much blame to assign to each). College Democrats of America is an underfunded and opaque organization of questionable effectiveness. The fact that they are underfunded is the fault of both the DNC who controls the CDA budget and the state parties who poach funding earmarked for youth outreach and spend it on other projects. That the organization is opaque is both the fault of the leadership and the DNC press office, which keeps a tight lid on things. It's questionable effectiveness comes from a combination of all of these things.

Writing about youth organizing should be a mix of carrot and stick, just like it is for our candidates and our institutions; groups should be praised when they do good, and critiqued when they do bad. When NARAL endorsed pro-choice Republicans over Anti-choice Democrats, the blogosphere didn't sit back and applaud NARAL for promoting pro-choice values. Instead, it was quick to point out the flaws of its strategy in achieving its long term goals. The blogosphere should turn the same critical eye to the work of youth organizations.

I often find it frustrating that within the blogosphere (and all media, really) youth organizing frequently gets boiled down to "college" (even though only 1/5 of 18 - 29 year olds currently attend a college or university). There are many more youth organizations out there than those that work on campuses, and much of the work in turning out more young voters in recent years has focused off campus as much as (if not more than) on. Our understanding of "youth activism" (our = the blogosphere and the media) needs to expand beyond what happens on college campuses just as much as it needs to move beyond the apathy narrative.

I confess, that it also irked me that so much praise (front page coverage on MyDD, America Blog and SenateGuru 2008 is nothing to sneeze at, and many organizations would love to have such coverage) went to something that at the end of the day was really so small - a promotional video meant to be viewed by only a handful of college students in one of the least populated states in the country.

That said, this was clearly the wrong time for me to pick this particular fight. My beef with CDA and the blogosphere's coverage of youth organizing are all separate issues, and I did a disservice to them all when I hurriedly conflated them in my posting. I'm mindful of the benefits of establishing a positive feedback loop between the blogs and youth organizers. CDA did a good job here and I shouldn't begrudge them some deserved praise.