street team 08

MTV Street Team interviews me about what its like blogging the election and young voters. Cool thing is that it got picked up by AP and is now posted on AOL and USNews and World Reports.

My major point emphasizing the importance of blogs is that it allows for you to completely cover something that mainstream media ignores... like.... um... what is a good example of an issue that the media doesn't cover or totally gets wrong? Gosh... there must be something... oh yeah! THE YOUTH MOVEMENT!

When I first started blogging it was 2004 and I pretty much had no idea wtf I was doing. I was a front page reader of Kos but didn't understand where all the other blogs were.... seriously.... I didn't get it, I didn't know too much about politics and all I knew was that I was pissed about the way I saw the Kerry campaign running and that my candidate was losing right along with him.

What a difference 4 years makes... Either way, thanks to all you great readers who, on occasions, think I sound lucid. And thanks to the other bloggers I so deeply admire.

MTV is giving its citizen-vlogger corps, Street Team '08, it's first real workout today. Vloggers in all of the Super Tuesday primary states are on the ground all day streaming video interviews and writing up blog posts in an attempt to give a local, youth-centric view of today's elections. The entire effort is being catalogued and housed on the Choose of Lose website, which is running a neat map feature to let you follow the vloggers as they go about their work:

The graphic is interactive and constantly updating. I'm not sure if you can read it, but vloggers ringed in orange have new blog posts that are live (since the last refresh), and vloggers ringed in red are streaming live video from their state at that moment.

My thoughts on the technology: The interface is a little clunky. It's hard to navigate between blog posts and videos, and even harder to get back to the map on the main page without hitting the back button a number of times. The reporters themselves are of wildly varying skills. Some seem to be having trouble with the live streaming, others seem to be at one with their camera. Some of them are clearly bloggers more than videographers and vice versa.

My thoughts on the content: On the whole, after clicking around for about a half hour, the real value thus far seems to be in the aggregate. No individual piece is really jumping out at me as spectacular, but watching 10 different videos (some streaming live) from as many different states, perusing different blog posts, etc, creates a very broad and diverse view of youth participation in today's election.

This is not a bad thing, or a criticism. It's going to take a while for all of these reporters to develop a style and an audience, and while I'm not blown away by any individual reporting just yet, the whole is very definitely better than the sum of its parts. That in itself is something of an accomplishment so early in the game.

What do you think, out in the states? Are the MTV vloggers doing a good job covering your local political scene?