ROLL CALL REPORTER ON THE GO
By Avery Schumacher

People running back and forth, papers flying, and phones ringing -- and there goes Dave Chapelle! This is a typical day for Sue Davis.

Davis is a 27-year-old reporter for the political journal Roll Call. She always starts her day reading as many as a dozen newspapers. Although young, the journey to where Davis finds herself now is not a short or easy one. She decided to be a reporter because, “I didn’t want a job just sitting behind a desk.”

Sitting behind a desk, doesn’t even begin to cover what Davis does on a daily basis.

She told high school students at Georgetown University today that her career journey has been fulfilling up to this point. It is the right job for her right now, as she doesn’t plan on settling down just yet. However when Davis does settle down she says, “I’m going to have to let go of this job,” because of the demands that are placed on her.

Now a veteran Hill reporter, Davis said she’s learned some important tricks of the trade. “Record everything you can,” she said.

"You have to wear comfortable shoes," she said.

Whether its meeting Dave Chapelle, or interviewing Nancy Pelosi, Davis is always busy, and if she has nothing else to do, there is always another newspaper to read.

TEENS DO CARE
By Avery Schumacher

Voting expert Mary McClelland worries about the challenge of getting young voters to make their voices heard in the 2008 election.

“We have witnessed a mutual cycle of neglect where young people don’t vote because no one is paying attention to them. No one is paying attention to them because they don’t vote,” McClelland, national field director for Young Voter Strategies, recently told Georgetown journalism students.

In the 2004 presidential election, the youth turnout improved 11 percent, according to the CIRCLE Fact Sheet (http://www.civicyouth.org). McClelland hopes this increase shows that not only are teens starting to show more interest in politics, but that their turnouts are starting to rival those of an older age group.

The candidates for the 2008 election are realizing how important the youth vote is and are making efforts to get teens to support them.

Hillary Clinton has pursued interactive campaigning on YouTube.com, a website that is popular among teen voters. The online campaign strategy involved teens participating in choosing a campaign song to promote her candidacy.

John Edwards is promoting himself to youth voters in a way similar to Clinton, using networking sites popular among teens to talk about issues that are important to teenagers.

Sen. Barack Obama is attempting to attract teen voters in a different way, hiring Hans Reimer the previous political director of Rock the Vote. Reimer sent out teens across the country to make other young people aware of issues and conscious of the need for them to vote.

The other candidates are taking actions to encourage youth voting as well. Many of them are focusing their efforts on networking sites such as face book or myspace, which are both very well-liked among teens (www.youngvoterstrategies.org).

“This election is going to be different than any other election previous to it. There are more ways to get news out to teens, and I think that more teens are willing to listen because the issues important to them are being talked about, and they are being talked about in ways easily accessible for them to access,” says Jenneva Florentine, a high school teacher, acknowledging the myspace/facebook craze. Florentine, being around teens between the ages of 17-18, witnesses on a daily basis how the brain of a teenager works.

“The access to information is at your fingertips. I think the reason young people don’t vote is because they are disenchanted with the system and the fact that their issues are not being addressed,” says McClelland of Young Voter Strategies.

Eighteen-year-old Brett Olsen says, “I’m going to vote in the 2008 election for one reason, because I don’t want another Republican in office.”

Some teens are as straightforward as Brett as about why they feel the need to vote. Others take a little more into consideration, and focus more on the topics and issues to make their decision.

Nineteen-year-old Logan O’Rourke finished the sentence, “To win my vote, a candidate must…” by adding, “show passion for the issues that are important to me." This statement has been made by more than a couple teens.

Logan also added, when asked if she feels enough is being done to get teens to vote that, “No, I don't think I saw a single ad in the last election that was aimed at young people. Teen voters need to be motivated, they are extremely important because they provide newer and fresher perspectives on the issues.”

McClelland’s organization and others like Rock the Vote are working hard to get teens to start voting. The statistics show the efforts are working and a high teen voter turn out is expected in 2008. In an informal survey by Georgetown journalism students, 72 percent of young people who were questioned said they planned on voting.

While the percentage of teens that plan on voting is high, the number of teens questioned who said that they thought politics were important was dramatically lower (52 percent).

The majority of teens interviewed in the Georgetown survey said that they get political information largely from the TV, closely followed by the Internet.

“The candidates should use these resources to the max,” says Chris Latterner, 18. “They need to realize that this is what we pay attention to, and although it might not seem important, what we pay attention to, it is what is going to matter when it comes time to vote in 2008.”

As much bad press as youth voters get, and as many false stories are printed about meager youth voter turn out, it is clear that most teens do care. “Make them pay attention to us, the idea that we are a powerful block,” McClelland told a group of teen journalists. “We are here, we are doing our thing, and we care about voting!”