journalism

Jessica Hillyard from pushback has a nice post up about Luke Russert that I wanted to echo.

Some people have discounted Luke Russert, speculating that his father’s unfortunate early death led some NBC higher-ups to offer him a job as a correspondent out of pity. Even though it’s easy to jump to such a conclusion upon seeing a privileged rookie ascend the career ladder so quickly, Russert has a particularly keen insight into our generation. In an interview with mediabistro.com, he demonstrates that he certainly has done his homework:

It seems that every election storyline is always, “young people will be coming out in record numbers,” and it never seems to happen. Do you think this year will be any different?

I do. From what I’ve seen on the ground, it certainly looks like kids will turn up in bigger numbers this year. But if you just look at the trajectory of the numbers, if we go from 2000 to 2004, there was a nine point increase in the number of kids who came out to vote. [For] the midterm elections in 2002 to 2006, there was a substantial increase as well, I believe in the range of eight to 10 points. At the primaries, 6.6 million young folks turned out to participate. So, given all of those statistics and those numbers, on paper it certainly looks like the youth vote will come this election.

That being said, no one really knows for sure. There [are] massive new voter registration numbers. If you look at the state of Virginia, there’s been since January, I think, about four or five hundred thousand people who have been registered to vote. Of those hundreds of thousands, people under 34 make up 62 percent of that new number. So if those folks come out to vote in a place like Virginia, it could really sway things. And I think they will. I mean, if they don’t come out in this election, I don’t know when they ever will come.

On one hand I agree with Jessica -- it's impressive and refreshing to me that Luke is right on with this topic, acting as an advocate for our movement in the traditional media and dispelling some of the lazy journalism that fails to recognize a pattern that has emerged in three straight election cycles now. A few weeks back, Russert appeared on Morning Joe with Daily Show writer Larry Wilmore. When asked if he thought youth would turn out in 2008, Wilmore said "absolutely not," and he and Willie Geist, the interviewer, yukked it up, totally ignorant about their ignorance. And then Russert stepped in and slowly explained what we already know. Watch for yourself (sorry about the beep at the beginning -- I looked for another video of the same clip but couldn't find it):

At 1:10, Russert disagrees, as he explains the trajectory, rattling off the numbers that show improvement from 2002 to 2006 and the improvement in turnout from 2000 to 2004. Unfortunately Geist and Wilmore laugh it off, and Geist still shows he has no clue what he's talking about, equating the whole youth vote with "urban hipsters" wearing Obama paraphernalia, saying he doesn't think they'll get out of bed to vote.

Unfortunately this statement is why I might add one caveat onto Jessica's analysis. While Russert gets the job done and knows everything he needs to know, blowhards like Geist don't take him seriously enough because he's not someone they can suck up to. He's still "young," and therefore no matter how many facts he offers, Geist (and others) will never feel motivated enough by someone like Russert to actually do some journalism and check out the numbers for himself.

I took a sick day earlier this week. I sat in my apartment, read, and I watched MSNBC all day. As I watched hour after hour of recycled trash, I realized I couldn't take it anymore. So with that garbage on my mind, I went back to my computer where I can usually find decent news. And surprise! -- I found myself reading about the same garbage I had just watched, yet someone dared to address it on air.

Atrios noted this week that a recent CNN segment that included Alex Castellanos, a Republican "political contributor," Paul Begala, the Democratic "political contributor," and the moderator John Roberts, exhibited horrible journalism. Here's the video and the transcript -- I'll meet you at the bottom.

ALEX CASTELLANOS, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Let's be a little gentle. Look, every elected official in this country works under the system we have, which is you try to get a little bit of your tax money back. You just don't want to leave it all in Washington. The amazing thing about Sarah Palin is when she became governor she actually stood up and said no. And she made it -

BEGALA: That's not true.

CASTELLANOS: She took a strong stand. That is rare and that never happened.

ROBERTS: All right.

BEGALA: That's just not true. You know, John, the facts matter.
There's lots of things that are debatable who is more qualified or
less experienced or more this or more passionate, whatever. It is a fact that she campaigned and supported that bridge to nowhere. It is a fact that she hired lobbyists to get earmarks. It is a fact that as governor she lobbies for earmarks. Her state is essentially a welfare state taking money from the federal government.

ROBERTS: We still have 56 days to talk about this back and forth.

BEGALA: This is the problem. We have this false debate when we oughtto have at least agreed upon facts.

First of all, I didn't think I'd ever say it, but kudos Paul Begala. It certainly doesn't even start to cover for your Crossfire days when you were just as bad as John Roberts (and were told so by Jon Stewart), but it was a good moment for you. You should treasure it.

As far as Castellanos goes, do we seriously expect more from a right wing bloviator who gets paid, as Atrios noted in his post, to tell, at best, half-truths on CNN? Of course not. Castellanos is getting paid to make these opinionated remarks with no basis -- why would he think this was wrong?

The person at fault here is John Roberts. And please keep in mind that when I criticize John, it is to address a larger point -- not merely John Roberts's suckiness. This is about the political discourse in this country and how fake it is. The fakeness here can be seen above, as Castellanos tries to peddle misinformation to voters (um, hello: Palin ate dinner on the taxpayers money in her house). But that's not the point. Begala rightly calls Castellanos out on the lie -- AFTER Roberts tried to shut the segment down the first time, deciding not to safeguard the facts of the story, and thereby foresaking his own integrity as a journalist. So after Begala finishes his piece, Roberts makes his quip: "We still have 56 days to talk about this back and forth."

The problem here is that John Roberts thinks he's getting paid to fill time with a nice little debate about nothing. He apparently doesn't care what is said; he apparently has no interest in holding people accountable. He apparently has no regard for what Americans hear during his time on television. And my experience with cable news tells me that there are several more like him who just don't care. Begala makes the point that I've been waiting to hear for a long time -- the whole "debate" is FALSE (perhaps he did learn his lesson from Stewart). In order to have a debate, there absolutely needs to be agreed upon facts. And I'm not going to say that Democrats/liberals don't do it either. I'm sure they do. But never has it been clearer to me that we're seriously missing out as citizens if we mindlessly consume this trash and call it being "engaged." John Roberts -- step it up.

There are many of us who work hard to get young people engaged in this country's affairs. One of the obvious ways of staying in touch with what is going on is by monitoring the media. But if we're going to be fed this crap over and over, how does that make us better citizens? How do the young people we work with become better voters and better participants in the process when journalists aren't even interested in the facts, but more in people yelling at each other to fill TV time?

Yes, it's one example. But there are many more out there. I'd rather a journalist be a bit biased if he'd do so little as acknowledge facts.

MTV is looking to hire vloggers in all 50 states to cover the campaign. This is a great opportunity to shape the youth narrative in the 2008 election cycle.

Ideal candidates will have their fingers on the pulse of issues that are important to young people in their states and be passionate about politics and the possibilities of new technology. Strong writing and reporting skills are a must. A distinctive voice and an authoritative point of view? Even better.

We'll load you up with some production gear and bring you to MTV's headquarters in New York City for orientation. In return, you will be expected to work in a paid, part-time capacity to file video, written or photographic stories weekly throughout the election year. Your pieces will be posted online and spread to mobile devices — and the top stories will be broadcast on MTV, MTV2, MTVU or MTV Trés each week.

Requirements:

• You must be at least 18 years old by December, 2007.
• You must reside in the state you are covering from January to November, 2008.
• You must have the time and ability to travel within your state and file at least one video, written or photographic story per week.

Apply Here. The deadline is September 21st.