REPORTERS NOT BIASED
By Kathryn Carlisle

Roll Call reporter Sue Davis today told Georgetown University journalism students to be unbiased in their reporting.

“It’s less about your political views and more about the story," she explained. "I think people over estimate the bias of journalists."

“A lot of covering Capitol Hill is standing in hallways,” said Davis, 27, noting the importance of comfortable shoes. She told students Capitol Hill reporting is a combination of the “news of the day” and the “bigger picture”.

“Those are the fun stories, when you’re sort of chasing the breaking news," she explained.

While an American History student at American University, Davis fell into journalism through her internship with Professor Linda Kramer at People Magazine. Davis is now the lead beat reporter covering the House for Roll Call, a local political publication.

"If you want to work for The Wall Street Journal, major in economics and minor in stats," she told students. Davis suggested going to graduate school for a specific type of journalism after working in the field. She explained that a journalism degree wouldn’t necessarily get you into journalism.

Davis encouraged students by telling them that journalism is always growing and changing. She stated that technology is having a positive long-term effect on the field.

"I can't imagine anything else that I'd rather be doing besides journalism," she said.

GENERAL POPULATION SAYS LOW TURNOUT, EXPERTS DISAGREE
by Kathryn Carlisle
Monday, August 6, 2007

With the 2008 campaign already in full swing, experts predict November will bring record numbers of youth to the voting booths.

However, it seems this message has not reached the majority of the American people. There is a division among the American people: those who see the youth vote as a weak demographic and those who see it as an increasingly viable resource.

A non-partisan youth vote organization, Young Voter Strategies (www.youngvoterstrategies.org), points to a steadily increasing youth voter rate as reason to pay attention to the American youth.

"We've got the power," says Mary McClelland, national field director for Youth Voter Strategies. "We are a powerful block."

McClelland says the many misconceptions about teen voters come from misread statistics. For example, she said that while many statistics show that the number of youth voters declined from 2000 to 2004, this conclusion is incorrect. More Americans voted in 2004 than 2000, making it look like there was a drop in youth participation. There was actually a nine percent increase in the youth vote, McClelland explained.

Ryan Mooney, a summer American politics student at Georgetown University, hopes the trend of voting will continue. "For teens to vote you just have to educate them on how much they can make a difference,” he says.

In Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Connecticut, youth are credited with significantly swaying recent elections, says Young Voter Strategies. In these states, congressional elections were won by a margin smaller than the number of youth who voted. In Connecticut's second district, Rep. Joe Courtney (D) won by only 83 votes, and he attributes his winning margin to young voters.

"Had the youth not voted, we wouldn't have won," Courtney Campaign Manager Lon Seidman told Young Voter Strategies.

In contrast, an informal survey by Georgetown University students shows other citizens believe young voters do not use their power effectively. The survey found that 78.8 percent of the 17-19 year olds questioned had not been contacted by any presidential campaigns.

"I don't believe the youth vote has significant sway because politicians respond to supporters, a.k.a. contributors," says Janet Joiner, a 69-year-old Spring Lake Board member. "Young folks unfortunately haven't accumulated enough wealth to make a difference."

Louann Nagy Werksema, a mother of three young voters, suggests her boys are less engaged than she was as a youth. "I went to work full time at 18," she says. "I was a taxpayer and interested in the process early." The wife of a nuclear reactor operator during the Cold War, Werksema says the world situation was more important to her as a youth than it is to her children.

Brian Fuller, a 19-year-old Baylor University student agrees. "The teen vote is sought after but not because [teens] impact elections. Teens will never vote in large numbers. They never have. International events don't affect them as much as their day-to-day dramas."

Rob Newton, a consulting actuary for Watson Wyatt Worldwide, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, calculated negative 18.8 percent effective power for young voters in the 2004 election. That means 29.3 percent of the electorate was comprised of youth, but only 40.8 percent of those who could vote actually did.

Looking ahead to the 2008 election, every presidential candidate has a youth vote director dedicated to winning the youth vote. Campaigners are using every medium to capture this untapped resource, includings www.YouTube.com to www.Facebook.com, www.MySpace.com and even text messages.

"I feel like those are efforts to connect with younger people," says Roll Call reporter Sue Davis. "I think they've realized that's a demographic that's kind of politically undefined."

Research by Young Voter Strategies suggests that in the 2008 presidential election "young adults can and likely will have a major impact on a national level". Young Voter Strategies states that "campaigns looking to 2008 would do well to understand how to court and mobilize this cohort".

The survey by Georgetown University students found that 71 percent of 17-19 year-olds plan to vote in November '08.

"This is the generation that is going to change America," said former presidential candidate Howard Dean to Myrtle Beach Online (http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/story/139652.html) .