REPORTERS NEED INITIATIVE
By Christine Williams

Capitol Hill reporter Sue Davis today told student journalists at Georgetown University that it takes initiative and tastefulness to do her job.

“You need credibility," said Davis. She said aspiring reporters can easily lose this credibility if they are not conscientious about what they wear, what they write or show on the internet, or the way they behave during internships.

She also shared another tip from her years covering the Hill first for Congress Daily and now for Roll Call. She said she spends most of her day standing in hallways and learned to wear comfortable shoes.

She reminded the students to dress appropriately when applying for jobs and when on the job. She remembered she once saw the House Sergeant at Arms deny admission to the speakers lobby to a reporter wearing an undersized tank top.

"Dress seriously if you want to be taken seriously,” said Davis, who looked quite appropriate in a purple blouse and black dress pants during her Georgetown talk.

She further warned the students about the way they portray themselves on the Internet. When a journalist turns in an application, one of the first instincts of the employer is to Google them. Davis has witnessed reporters being rejected based on an inappropriate Facebook page.

Davis considers successful internships to be a key to finding work. “Be on time, work hard, and stay a little bit later,” said Davis.

Gaining the respect of employers pays off down the road. As Davis has realized from her own internship at People Magazine, a recommendation from an employer, even as an intern, is one of the best additions to a young reporter’s application.

In a little over an hour, Sue Davis was able to advise and prepare Georgetown students for their future experiences in breaking into the field of journalism.

TEENS TO IMPACT BALLOT BOX IN 2008
By Christine Williams

Experts have dubbed the potential powerhouse of teen voters "a force to be reckoned with" in the 2008 election.

Teen awareness and unprecedented campaign efforts have brought about the collapse of what some call the “mutual cycle of neglect.”

“The idea [that] young people don't vote because nobody's paying attention to them; nobody's paying attention to them because they don't vote," says Mary McClelland, national field director for Young Voter Strategies.

It was in 1972, 35 years ago, that 18-year-olds were first given the constitutional right to vote. That year proved to be the highest turnout of young voters at 52 percent. Since then, the numbers for many years drastically dropped and candidates overlooked teens and focused their efforts on the coveted "Ohio soccer mom's vote," according to McClelland.

She says the magnitude of the potential teen vote has started to change the candidate’s minds.

Young Voter Strategies (www.youngvoterstrategies.org) says that by 2015, today’s teens will comprise one-third of the electorate. Campaigns want that vote because they know that once a young person has voted for a party an average of two times, "they're locked in for life," said George Stephanopolous during his show “This week with George Stephanopoulous” .

The inaccurate stereotype of teen's political apathy has spread far and wide and is a challenge teen voters and candidates will have to confront.

Commentator Cokie Roberts voiced the opinion many Americans have towards teen voting when she declared on the Stephanopolous show that 18- to 29-year-olds "don't vote.” According to Young Voter Strategies, 49 percent of them voted in 2004.

Despite those numbers, some political observers along with teens themselves insist teen apathy will be difficult to overcome.

"Teens cannot sway the vote in the 2008 election, because teens are too lazy to even register to vote," says Christina Brubaker of Plano, Texas, who will be eligible to vote in the 2008 election.

But not all teens agree. More teens are realizing the potential of the youth vote. Mary McClelland talked about how a Minnesota college junior took a year off to run a massive statewide program that encouraged teens to vote. The college activist along with other supporters of the Democratic campaign built a giant paper maché 'debt rock' to stir up college students to vote and end their debt. Everyone wanted a picture of themselves being crushed by student debt, said McClelland. The ‘debt rock’ was not teens only involvement.

They understood that peer-peer contact is “the most effective way [of getting teens to vote] because it’s a trusted messenger… you trust them and you’re going to take what they say into account,” says McClelland.

Minnesota student volunteers went through www.facebook.com profile pages and looked at political affiliations, making a database of liberals in their area. They knocked on doors and made phone calls until Election Day in which the Democrats won by a landslide.

Brian Fuller of Atlanta is another teen who believes his vote can make a difference. “I'm just one fish in a big sea, but even one fish can help change the current," said Fuller, a sophomore at Baylor University.

Fuller is not the only one planning to make a difference in the 2008 election.

According to polling done by MTV, six in 10 teens said they are paying “a lot or some attention” to the campaign compared to four years ago when only 35 percent said they were paying attention.

These teens are the Millennial Generation, the post- 911 generation, and the most involved generation in recent history. "We are going to make less money than our parents did, we are going to be in more debt, we are going to deal with more issues, we have opinions, and if we have opinions we should let them be known loudly,” said McClelland. “We should be out there angry and organized and doing something about it no matter what those issues are that you care about most."

Jordan Schneider of New York City says he thinks voting is "part of my civic responsibility. I'm personally embarrassed when I see that only 50 percent of our country vote. So that statistic in part drives me to get to the voting box."

John Sullivan, 17 of Edina, MN., says, “I'm planning to vote, essentially because it’s my way of participating and getting the decisions I want made.”

According to an informal survey done at Georgetown University, the most important issues to teen voters are the Iraq war, global warming, and foreign policy. After getting their political information from the TV and the Internet, 37 percent of teens plan to vote for Barack Obama.

The presidential candidates for 2008 have learned from politicians like Joe Courtney in Connecticut, Charlie Crist in Florida, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. They all reached out and mobilized armies of youth volunteers and voters and won the election. Democrat Courtney was elected to the House in 2006 by a margin of only 83 votes.

"Had the youth not voted, if we hadn't done all this, we wouldn't have won," Lon Seidman, Courtney’s campaign manager, told reporters after the election.

McClelland said that candidates have been phoning her organization saying, "We get it. We get it. How do we get to these people?" For the first time, each major presidential contender in 2008 has hired a campaign field director specifically to motivate teens.

Hillary Clinton is reaching out with Club 44, a carnival-themed event to inspire young women to support Hillary, and Obama has started “Obama for Teens.” The youth voted is being targeted because of its massive size and its impressionability.

McClelland emphasizes the candidates “have seen the writing on the wall" that teens “care, were there, were engaged. We just have to turn it over in the ballot box.”