journalism

It's not every day we report on a campus newspaper editorial here, but sometimes one is problematic enough to require a response.

The Georgetown student newspaper -- the Hoya -- published a disappointing editorial today, calling for the disempowerment of students while arguing that national leaders should be left to continue their assault on our generation.

...Student body presidents are elected to represent their peers in campus-specific proposals that are designed to make college life easier. National political representation, however, should be left to the congressmen and senators that many of those two million-plus college students elect of their own free will.

The campaign, which kicked off August 2, claimed to represent "our generation," but what it became was a grandstanding gesture by student leaders who saw a publicity opening. They got what they wanted: endless web, newspaper and television press, including buzz over a conference call with President Obama. The coalition expanded quickly, not because the student body presidents were being urged by their respective constituents to mobilize, but because they found company in their equally ambitious counterparts at other universities.

But in the end, what was actually accomplished? Elected campus leaders may have written a letter and filled the Twitter feeds of Congressmen with the now famous hashtag, but students did not march en masse in the streets of Washington. Student body presidents did not compel their peers to action by coordinating a phone-a-thon to congressional leaders. Nor did they solicit the cooperation of the College Republicans or College Democrats, two political forces on campus who may have been better equipped to take on Capitol Hill during the debt crisis.

While we understand GUSA's good intentions, it is important they remember their place as representatives of Georgetown students to the administration, not to politicians. GUSA executive representatives did not advertise a political campaign when they were running back in February. While Healy Hall and Capitol Hill were designed to mirror each other across Washington, GUSA leaders should stick to leading who they were elected to lead — our student body.

The editorial board disapproved of their fellow Georgetown student, student body president Mike Meaney, organizing a coalition of national student government presidents. The campaign--"Do We Have a Deal Yet"--was created to pressure Congress to stop bickering during the debt ceiling debate/budget crisis and to strike a deal with the next generation in mind, not the next election. It seems that the editorial board would have rather seen more of a focus on campus-specific matters than on "grandstanding gestures" protesting policies and discussions that ostensibly have no direct relevance to Georgetown students' lives.

Of course, the discussions and eventual compromise--if one could call it that--absolutely impacts the quality of life of each college student. For example, did you know that part of the ceiling deal takes money out of the pockets of loan-paying students? Grad students--used to being able to attend class without worrying about interest accruing on their loans--now find that reality taken away. Students who made 12 consecutive payments on their loans in a timely fashion used to be rewarded with a credit. As of July 1, 2012, that no longer exists.

Yes, these issues are made abstract and mind-numbing by the media, which generally aren't capable of facilitating a meaningful, substantive discussion on issues. And a system of higher education, resting on a bunch of siloed departments and divisions unwilling to cooperate, doesn't exactly serve as the best socializing force. Mix those together with an inability to see healthy conflict and a distaste for anything containing the word "politics," and we get the editorial quoted above, which surely represents something close to the views of many students.

What's sad is that this view--that officeholders are the experts and that students' roles are to merely take space on college campuses and exclusively agonize about matters like campus pub closures--is misguided at best and simply unaffordable right now given the problems we all face. Yes--there are problems on our campuses that student governments were elected to solve. But any student government with which I've affiliated is tasked with the responsibility of improving the lives of the students they represent. There is no such thing as a "campus bubble."

Various cultural, economic, and social forces infiltrate campus confines every second of every day. In taking on the task of representing students, student government representatives are obligated to lobby their local, state, and federal governments. Because politics is everywhere, the reality is that everyone is a politician, navigating various systems of power whether they like it or not--even the student journalists writing the editorial.

While compartmentalizing these systems would simplify the job of covering their campus, unfortunately things in the "real world" aren't that cut and dry. Yes, students are citizens of their campus and should have a say on something like a campus pub being slated to close. But students are also citizens of the town, state, country, and planet in which their campus is located. Policies passed at various levels of society impact the student experience, thereby creating a need for any elected student representative to serve as an advocate on and off campus; it also creates a need for student journalists to help their peers understand these impacts. Even though it might make these journalists' jobs a bit more complicated, that's what we need.

Students and young people are marginalized enough in our society; we don't need to do it to ourselves. If it were up to the Hoya editorial board, young people would go back to the kids' table and mind our p's and q's. We can't afford to take that approach any longer, however. The college student body presidents should be commended for 1.) observing the impact the debt discussion has on our generation--their campuses included--and 2.) for speaking out against the process. If anything, these student leaders had the opportunity to, and could have done more to stand up for their constituents, including broadening the number of participants to include the constituents themselves. I hope this collaborative activism continues and intensifies, and I hope to see the Hoya and other student newspapers cover it as they should.

There is an interesting top ten list I ran that addresses the slow bleed of readers from traditional media sources and poses ideas for pulling young people more into the news media.

Amusingly enough, the whole thing amounts to a 151 page PDF report. I don't think I'm alone in arguing that a 151 page report would be mistake number one, but I digress.

The first recommendation is for journalists who write more in-depth complex stories to provide contextual analysis so readers understand the political, historical, or financial implications on the topic being addressed.

Secondly, they recommend a kind of "wisdom journalism." Wouldn't that be nice? Wisdom journalism is a specific kind of reporting where a journalist is an expert in the topic he or she is covering and can give a more active, interpretive approach to the story. Amazingly enough, the report is saying young people value the kind of old school journalism that the world became accustomed to with Murrow, Bradlee, Margaret Fuller, and Nellie Bly. This is in direct contrast to the hyper-graphic super flashy hologram iNews that I feel like we see on the 24-hour cable crap.

The third is to personalize the news. Their examples are amazon and ebay which allows us to personalize everything that we want or need so they ask why shouldn't the news be that way? I don't know how I feel about this. Basically, this sounds like the blogosphere kind of news, and maybe that's what they think news should emulate. I read Kos or HuffPo because I'm choosing to read my news from a perspective that is more personalized for my agenda. But I value the lack of personalized preference in sites like CNN or the NYTimes. They deliver the news, if I wanted the spin I'd read my blogs.

Four and five are about redesigning sites and formats to make things hip and sexier, and I'll agree streamlining presentation is important. One of my greatest problems in my job now is the constant fight between the "old guard" who continue to insist that websites offer press releases, documents, and various other things via PDF. I don't think I'm alone in rolling my eyes when I click a link and watch my browser begin to download something.

Six is to make the news more civic and community focused. I think this is code for doing happier stories on good civic things that are happy or community events that are more localized and impact people's daily lives.

Seven is where it becomes art: Report on stories about young people. It seems like the only stories I hear about young people via the mainstream news are the ones that diss our generation or they're the stories that we've worked collectively in the youth movement to garner attention around for weeks. Stories about young people or issues that matter to young people give a reason to watch or read beyond that the news is relying on the topic and without a "wisdom journalism" what else is there?

Eight is to begin raising children with the news so it becomes part of the culture of young people. This is a pretty decent point - we never had CNN on TV growing up in classrooms. I was a sophomore in high school before I was in a classroom that had the daily newspaper. I loved that my college had free papers for those with student ID's. Everything from the local to the NYTimes, it was fantastic. I hope these are more accessible in schools.

Nine is providing more sharing features which references allowing access to share stories on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Any site that doesn't do this now is simply stupid. When we read something important we share it with our friends online, the easier the news makes it the better.

Finally, they encourage thinking about new approaches to TV news. This is delicious (emphasis mine):

"The network evening newscast is not a popular news platform among young people, and its market share will continue to decrease in the years ahead. Though cable news is much more popular, it too is losing ground to the Internet and will continue to. Television news is generally less dense than printed or online content per minute spent by consumers, and cable news is plagued by well-known problems. Yet it remains a powerful medium thanks to its visual strength and nearly universal penetration. Television outlets should focus on online content production and select particular topics to highlight in-depth on-air. Current.tv is an encouraging but limited example of this idea in action."

I hope we can save the news industry - I mean the real news industry. If Faux died I wouldn't lose any sleep, but quality Pulitzer style journalism deserves to be saved and its an endangered species. If these few tweaks can help them make the transition into the new world then a blessing on the house of news. The ones resistant to evolve will lose.

The other day in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Salena Zito penned a piece headlined "Young Voters Increasingly Identify with Conservative Politics." Not surprisingly (especially considering the paper's conservative editorial page), that conclusion is flawed.

The headline writer seems to base his or her conclusion on this:

Civic involvement among politically aware young people is growing, based on attendance at the Feb. 18-20 Conservative Political Action Conference in the nation's capital.

Elementary, high school and college students who pre-registered for the conference accounted for 60 percent of the crowd, up 10 percent from 2009, said the event's director, Lisa De Pasquale. They wore business attire, but many could be seen connecting to social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook while mingling.

Yes, young people are engaged in politics at a higher rate -- even at conservative political conferences. But I am still waiting for something to prove the headline hypothesis.

Zito next moves to the recent Pew Research Center study on the Millennial generation. The report found that youth job approval of President Barack Obama is decreasing.

In Pew Research’s February 2010 survey, 57% of Millennials approved of the way Obama was handling his job as president, down from 73% in February 2009. Moreover, Millennials have become much more critical of Obama’s handling of several major issues, especially the war in Afghanistan. In January, Millennials were the only age group in which more disapproved than approved of Obama’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan.

Also, the Democratic Party's appeal among Millennials has taken a hit as well. This has resulted in an increase in the number of Millennials identifying with the Republican Party.

Between the 2004 and 2008 presidential election years, the Democratic Party opened a substantial advantage nationwide in party identification. In 2004, Democrats held a slim 47% to 44% advantage in leaned party identification among registered voters. By 2008, this lead had expanded to 51% to 39%.

But the Democrats’ advantage peaked in 2008 and early 2009, and it has decreased over the past year. In the first quarter of 2009, 53% of registered voters identified with or leaned to the Democratic Party, compared with 38% who identified with or leaned to the Republican Party. But in the final quarter, Democrats had only a 49% to 42% advantage over Republicans among
voters.

This overall shift has taken place within most age groups. The share of Millennial voters who identified or leaned Democratic fell from 60% at the beginning of 2009 to 54% at the end of the year, while the share who identified or leaned Republican rose from 31% to 40%. While the Democratic Party still maintained an advantage among Millennials at the end of 2009, the margin had shrunk substantially.

So, yes, the Republican Party has attracted Millennials over the past year. And while one could fairly question whether or not young people are becoming more conservative, one cannot credibly conflate the phenomenon of more young people attending CPAC and the report that Millennials are becoming disenchanted with Democrats and gradually identifying with the Republican Party to make that case. Both are faulty generalizations. The first one doesn't allow for better recruitment efforts, better weather, or better economics that also could have enabled more young people to attend CPAC. The second seems to equate the Republican Party with "conservative." Ask some Texas Republicans about Kay Bailey Hutchison and they'll let you know that the two terms are mutually exclusive.

Indeed, the subtitle of the very same Pew Research report Zito cites labels Millennials "a pro-government, socially liberal generation." The data reveal that Millennials still hold on to pro-government values. More than half (the only generation that can claim this) of youth favor government intervention and an activist government.

Millennials are significantly less critical of government on a number of dimensions than are other age cohorts. This tendency has been seen on a variety of individual survey questions as well as on a three-question index of items from the political values survey; this index covers opinions about government’s effectiveness, government regulation of business and whether the government has too much control over people’s lives.

What does it take for us to get better journalism in this country? I would assume a headline writer or editor constructed the headline in this case, but Zito still was trying to conflate the two examples above to seemingly make some kind of faulty conclusion that youth are more conservative. As long as our citizens continue to read misinformation, our democracy and trust in institutions like the press suffers.

I've not been shy about critiquing those who work in journalism within the Beltway for getting lost in their bubble. Many times these journalists will construct realities or political narratives that don't exist or simply aren't true in the rest of the country.

We should first distinguish between the prognosticators who make the stuff up, and the reporters who objectively report the bullshit.

We have an example of the former today, as David Broder argues that Sarah Palin should be taken seriously. Calling Palin "a public figure at the top of her game -- a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself," Broder paints Palin as a populist hero, someone capable of leading the romanticized teabaggers to a climactic victory over the oppressive government and Glenn Beck-haters everywhere.

So epic!

Broder might want to revisit populism's root word and his newspaper's polling operation, though. Unfortunately for Palin and Broder, people aren't buying it. Not even the GOP. So says the Washington Post.

Although Palin is a tea party favorite, her potential as a presidential hopeful takes a severe hit in the survey. Fifty-five percent of Americans have unfavorable views of her, while the percentage holding favorable views has dipped to 37, a new low in Post-ABC polling.

There is a growing sense that the former Alaska governor is not qualified to serve as president, with more than seven in 10 Americans now saying she is unqualified, up from 60 percent in a November survey. Even among Republicans, a majority now say Palin lacks the qualifications necessary for the White House.

Palin has lost ground among conservative Republicans, who would be crucial to her hopes if she seeks the party's presidential nomination in 2012. Forty-five percent of conservatives now consider her as qualified for the presidency, down sharply from 66 percent who said so last fall.

Among all Republicans polled, 37 percent now hold a "strongly favorable" opinion of Palin, about half the level recorded when she burst onto the national stage in 2008 as Sen. John McCain's running mate.

Keep in mind this is all after Palin's spike in visibility.

I'm not sure how this developed in Broder's brain, but the evidence is clear -- people (even conservatives) aren't buying into Palin's message. It's unfortunate that Broder continues to be one of the leading voices in Washington punditry.

In the work that we do as part of the progressive youth movement, vote drives aimed toward young people can easily take on a message like "vote for voting's sake." The result? A media and society that just assume youth are going to vote regardless of what is going on around them. It's a convenient dualism for the establishment: if youth don't vote, call them disengaged; if they do vote, it's due to either a hotshot candidate, issues on the line directly impacting their lives, or because they're supposed to since everyone else is doing it. This is ignorant, though, and just as the world is much more complex than most two-way issues, the same goes with youth voting.

Let's now look at one of the two approaching gubernatorial elections.
New Jersey's race has been topsy-turvy. Incumbent Democratic governor Jon Corzine, hamstrung with a rough economic environment and voters increasingly unhappy with their state's corrupt reputation, trailed Republlican candidate Chris Christie from the start, though he has pulled even as of late given Christie's own problems.

Where do young voters come in? Let's use the New Jersey race as an example.

The New York Times published an article today titled, "Corzine Courts Obama Backers in All-Out Push." And yes, within the "Obama backers," the Times paints young voters as being the heart and soul of the group; it's great if they come through. But what if they don't?

We might be able to see a preview in the article. Check out this academic's view:

“If Corzine can activate the Obama surge vote in New Jersey, that would suggest that last year was more than just a flash, that it has staying power,” said Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University. “It will show that Obama’s support was about more than just one candidate’s charismatic personality, and give him a chance to transform American politics.”

Did you get that? Only if young voters show up in New Jersey does "Yes We Can" mean anything. As if 2004 and 2006 didn't happen?? Perhaps, just maybe, Lichtman is missing something.

The article goes on:

The first-time voters are described by campaign operatives from both parties as more likely to be African-American, Latino and urban than the overall electorate. But the group also includes younger voters, so in addition to canvassing in places like Newark and Camden, Mr. Corzine’s campaign has obtained some voter data and contact information from Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign Web site, and is trying to reach them through online appeals and social networking.

“In 2005, Jon Corzine didn’t even have a Facebook page,” said Joseph Cryan, the state Democratic chairman. “But now, with the help of the president’s voter lists, we’ve got people following us on Twitter, and we are reaching out to them in ways we hadn’t ever done before.”

With turnout unlikely to exceed 2.5 million on Tuesday, Corzine officials estimate that if they draw only a quarter of first-time Obama voters to the polls, they could gain the edge they need.

But even the governor’s most ardent supporters acknowledge that selling Mr. Corzine to Obama admirers has not been easy. On the surface, it would be hard to imagine two political figures more different. Mr. Obama is charismatic, eloquent and stylish, while Mr. Corzine is self-effacing, and an often meandering public speaker. And more significant, Mr. Corzine bears the burden of the state’s gloomy economy and reputation for corruption.

News flash to the Corzine campaign: for as much as the Millennial generation likes to be online, likes to post pictures wearing scandalous Halloween costumes on Facebook, likes to watch funny videos on YouTube, and likes to organize political events and/or service projects, we need to be talked to in order to get our vote.

Yes, Barack Obama's organization did a great job in the campaign at connecting with us on social networks like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and a host of others. But he also talked about our issues, and his team made sure we were seeing friendly faces in addition to friend requests and emails. His style matched ours, and the issues he discussed resonated with us. Yes, he asked us to vote for him, but he also asked us to give something back, to get involved, and reminded us that there's got to be a place at the table for us if this country is to take steps forward in the 21st Century.

But Corzine's campaign is willing to settle for a certain number of youth (not suggesting that Obama's camp didn't have their targets in 2008, but they respected us enough to avoid coming out and saying it). This sends a perception that the youth are just the bloc the governor needs to retain power, nothing more. Why? Because if the governor was actually interested in what the youth of New Jersey had to offer, or what they might want to see in his platform or next term, he wouldn't be clinging to Obama.

Yes, it's important to have a Democratic governor in New Jersey, but it's also important for campaigns to understand that youth don't vote to vote. They do so because they're asked for something beyond the vote. The vote isn't a literal, routine act. It's pregnant with significance. It signifies that we see a piece of ourselves in the candidate, that we believe that person will make decisions with our best interests in mind. Part of that is accomplished when people our age support and defend the candidate to us.

You can't buy that. You can't get that feeling from young voters unless you try. And you don't try by spamming their Facebook accounts a week or so before Election Day.

So let's turn to this: say the youth, because the Corzine folks rarely engaged us, don't turn out and the media lambastes them for only voting for personality (codeword for Obama). What is our plan? How do we respond?

Unfortunately, given the lack of funding for many progressive youth organizations, the communications efforts aren't there. By no means am I an expert in progressive youth infrastructure, but I do want to raise awareness of this. Because I have a feeling that the Corzine campaign's inability to engage youth on a peer-to-peer level is going to have some rough consequences, I believe we're going to be facing the "youth are disengaged" meme that will affect our preparations for 2010 and 2012. What are we going to do?

There's a great piece in the Village Voice about J School graduates seeking work in a questionable economy. Given the posts Craig and I have been doing about the state of journalism in the wake of the Cronkite death, I thought this piece an interesting boost of optimism from aspiring Millennial Journalists.

Even though a career in journalism "makes as much sense as signing up for a career as a Pontiac dealer," it seems the hard times are no match for a generation hell bent on reviving the profession with a boost of technology and a new fresh approach. Millennials to the rescue!

Malia Politzer's "concentration was new media and investigative journalism. "I'm a bit of a technophobe," Politzer says, so she was glad to be pushed to learn how to make websites, shoot and edit video, build flash sites, and use multimedia in her reporting. . . She had already worked as an intern at The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong and had the opportunity to be a freelance writer covering the Beijing Olympics"

Despite the optimism, however, all of the young people interviewed aren't in full time post-grad jobs. They've scored sweet internships and key fellowships, but that hasn't actually translated into a salary with benefits.

"Being a reporter in New York is like being an actor in Hollywood," says Aïda Alami, 25, a native of Marrakesh who was a magazine major. "I needed a degree to get ahead a bit and meet people and make contacts."

Despite jobs at MTV, Google News, the 2004 Kerry Campaign, and a graduate degree from Columbia Chikodi Chima can't get his new blog funded.

"In January, I launched a blog called TechTrotter to investigate start-up hot spots of the developing world," he says. "I wanted to see where innovation is happening off the radar of the mainstream American media." . . . He generates most of the content, but says that if he were to launch his own company, it would be "a subscription-based fact-checking service that hires unemployed journos to double-check blog posts" before they're published."

The major problem with new journalists who are armed to the gills with tech experience and knowledge, is that so many papers still haven't figured "it" out. As Jack Schafer from Slate notes back in January

"The curious thing about the various plans hatched in the ’90s is that they were, at base, all the same plan: “Here’s how we’re going to preserve the old forms of organization in a world of cheap perfect copies!” The details differed, but the core assumption behind all imagined outcomes . . . was that the organizational form of the newspaper, as a general-purpose vehicle for publishing a variety of news and opinion, was basically sound, and only needed a digital facelift."

Perhaps, they should employ some of these new enthusiastic grads for some outside of the box ideas.

Frank Rich comments in his most recent column on the "lazy journalism" I tried to describe last week. He does a much better job than I did.

That’s why the past week’s debate about whether there could ever again be a father-figure anchor with Cronkite’s everyman looks and sonorous delivery is an escapist parlor game. What matters is content, not style. The real question is this: How many of those with similarly exalted perches in the news media today — and those perches, however diminished, still do exist in the multichannel digital age — will speak truth to power when the country is on the line? This journalistic responsibility cannot be outsourced to Comedy Central and Jon Stewart.

Moving as it may be to repeatedly watch Cronkite’s famous on-camera reactions to J.F.K.’s death and the astronauts’ moon landing, those replays aren’t the story. It’s a given that an anchor might mist up during a national tragedy and cheer a national triumph. The real test is how a journalist responds when people in high places are doing low deeds out of camera view and getting away with it. Vietnam and Watergate, not Kennedy and Neil Armstrong, are what made Cronkite Cronkite.

The main problem I had with David Gregory's email last week was that he was trying to be a friend to Governor Sanford and the staffer(s) at the expense of what he is actually paid to do. And if David Gregory (or Jake Tapper or any other inside-the-beltway journalist) can't be tough when a governor's steamy sex secrets are exposed, what are the chances he'd speak truth to power when presented with more substantive tests? Not good.

When I read Craigs Blog last weekend, I'll admit I was surprised and shocked. I jokingly tell people that every Sunday I attend the Church of Meet The Press, and for years referred to Tim Russert as Rev. for that very reason. To have David Gregory turn into just another spin sucking reporter broke my heart.

But then today, something else happened.

Let me begin with this. There is a great blog out of DC called EricaAmerica written by Erica Anderson, a young journalist who asks tough questions and demands answers. Erica was one of the MTV Street Team reporters during the 2008 Election. MTV chose to do a youth journalism program partnering with the AP and various other news agencies to report from every state in the country and Washington DC about what young people thought about the election.

Erica was the DC reporter. Since the election she's continued writing her blog about what's going on in DC and how it relates to the general whole of politics as she sees it. This includes pieces on Iranian protests, Don't Ask Don't Tell, the Tiller Murder, and all sorts of political issues from a front row seat at our nation's capitol.

Her best is a series of interviews and questions with Helen Thomas, the famed White House reporter who sat in the press room and asked former President Bush all of the questions no one else would ask.

But if Erica's latest blog is any indication, her recent hiatus might be a prolonged after the death of real journalism.

"The fate of journalism scares me. And it feels impossible, without giving up absolutely everything, including a personal life, to seek original content in my spare time, not just spin what’s already been spun. I think you all, the people who visit my blog, deserve some original stories. Not more GD spin."

And she's right. Outside of the major papers or news services we've turned into an country where we want our news pre-digested to fit our political persuasion. Whether Faux or Olberman our news comes with the talking points allocated by their respective sides. The rest is just a bunch of old white men who try and make jokes to convey their opinions while flashy graphics splay across the screen.

The best journalism comes not from these highly paid Larry Kings of the world with their five ex-wives or perfectly quaffed hair, but from the newspapers or bloggers who give up their lives and sometimes salaries to follow a lead.

Erica tells it best

"I was at a happy hour with a bunch of people who worked at ABC, NBC, CNN, etc. A senior White House producer from CNN asked me about Helen [Thomas]. I answered by asking her why people in the Press Corp didn’t follow up on Helen’s questions, the ones that were so OBVIOUS, like, Mr. President, are you certain Iraq has WMD? Why do intelligence reports contradict? Do we torture? You know, the basics.

The CNN Producer’s answer? “She makes us all uncomfortable.”

Uncomfortable? What a waste of a press pass. Someone who seeks the truth makes the Press Corp “uncomfortable.”

As young people begin college journalism programs I wonder how they feel about their ability to find jobs. Are they taught to strive for the on-camera personality or do they look for the job that lets them tell a story? Or ask the hard questions like Helen Thomas?

When my cousin had just moved to Washington DC to work for the Associated Press I went to visit her and we watched All the President's Men. I was probably 13 and it was my first time seeing it, but I remember she told me that the story made her want to be a journalist.

But does that kind of journalism exist anymore? And for those with whom it does - can they still get paid doing it? Or, like Erica, do they have to have a day job at the same time with journalism simply as a hobby?

I'll write a regular youth blog tomorrow, but I wanted to highlight Erica as being indicative of a profession I fear is being devalued and diminished right along with the other young people just like her. She talks about the too frequent accusation that the internet is forcing journalism into a by-gone occupation. It isn't the internet that is the source of the problem, its just sloppy bad journalism. Too many half ass producers and reporters feeling "uncomfortable" to hold someone accountable. Too afraid to ask the hard questions. Bloggers aren't scared - that's why people read them.

"Internet and technology will make journalism better off. More informed. More conscious. More like Helen."

Even if it isn't the end of an Erica, it might be the end of an era. I join her in hoping the future of real true journalism doesn't fall to people who refuse to do their jobs because it makes them "uncomfortable."

Journalism today scares me. I’ll tell you why.

Our generation is investing our time and effort reinvigorating our nation’s civic life. Millennials are rising through the ranks of American society at a time when our team-oriented, pragmatic approach is necessary to successfully combat the problems confronting the U.S. Contrary to our Boomer parents, our activism is inside-out in nature, not outside-in. The way we make change is to infiltrate institutions and transform them from within. This form of activism requires a generation that pays attention to current events, one that leans toward political engagement as opposed to apathy. The political world saw our impact in the 2004 election, as Millennials were the only age group to vote for John Kerry, and it felt it in 2008, with Millennials favoring Barack Obama over John McCain by a 2-1 margin, and providing Obama with most of his margin of victory. While we still have a ways to go in convincing our political parties and the government to recruit more Millennials for positions with decision-making power, I don’t think many would argue that our generation is well on its way to Howe and Strauss’s vision of the generational powerhouse prophesied in Millennials Rising.

What’s surprising to me is that we have made such progress in the face of awful journalism. The tribute to Walter Cronkite following his recent death is appropriate and ironic. The media, dubbed “The Fourth Estate,” wax poetic on Cronkite’s integrity and objectivity, while epically failing to meet these same standards today. More ironic is that examples of these failures were released to the public this week when The Charleston Post and Courier secured and published e-mails between South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s staffers and the leading political journalists of mainstream news outlets. One such example is David Gregory, NBC’s moderator of Meet the Press. TPM Muckraker outlined a particularly concerning exchange taking place between Gregory and Sanford’s then-press secretary, Joel Sawyer.

Gregory's first email to Sawyer was sent at 12:24 p.m. on Wednesday June 24 -- that is, after Sanford had admitted to The State that he had actually been in Argentina, but before the famed stream-of-consciousness press conference where he admitted to an affair. Gregory wrote:

Hey Joel ...
Left you a message. Wanted you to hear directly from me that I want to have the Gov on Sunday on Meet The Press. I think it's exactly the right forum to answer the questions about his trip as well as giving him a platform to discuss the economy/stimulus and the future of the party. You know he will get a fair shake from me and coming on MTP puts all of this to rest.
Let's talk when you can.

Gregory left two different phone numbers.

After the press conference, Sawyer replied:

David --
Thank you very much for taking the time to personally reach out to us. For the time being, we're just going to let what the governor said today stand on its own. If we do some interviews in the future, I'll let you know as soon as possible.

Gregory followed up quickly: "You aren't doing anything at all this week...no other intvus anywhere?" Sawyer replied that they weren't.
Gregory gave it one last shot:

Look, you guys have a lot of pitches .. I get it and I know this is a tough situation ... Let me just say this is the place to have a wider conversation with some context about not just the personal but also the future for him and the party ... This situation only exacerbates the issue of how the GOP recovers when another national leader suffers a setback like this. So coming on Meet The Press allows you to frame the conversation how you really want to...and then move on. You can see (sic) you have done your interview and then move on. Consider it.

Sawyer did not respond.

This exchange is a perfect example of the difference between Cronkite’s journalism skills – the skills we need the media to have today – versus the lacking skill of modern journalists like Gregory. Yes, it’s a business. But we need it to be a noble business, one that uncovers answers and information with the public’s interest at heart. In Gregory’s example, as moderator of MTP, shouldn’t he be framing the conversation? Gregory’s apparent willingness to allow any guest to dictate the direction of the interview is seriously problematic.

If Millennials want to continue to build and reinvigorate our civic institutions for the Twenty-First Century, I suggest we start with the media. Luckily we already have Scoop44 on board, a youth-run media outlet dedicating to chronicling the Obama administration from a youth perspective. Scoop44’s about page frequently describes itself as energetic, perhaps needling the traditional media’s penchant for lazy reporting. We also have a friend in Luke Russert at NBC, following in his dad's footsteps and asking questions about youth issues like the impact of the economy and unemployment on our generation. But in order for us to make the largest mark on society, Millennials need more from today's journalists.

Any thoughts on the state of the media and its relationship with Millennials as we continue to gain more power across the nation?

Last Friday night, Luke Russert did a piece on young people and the economy that appeared on NBC Nightly News. Here's the video:

The economy is starting to affect much of society now, but young people continue to be overlooked. Russert's piece shines some light on the horrible job market those lucky enough to secure a college degree face. Here's hoping we see some more reporting on the major networks like Russert's piece.