Election Coverage Recap

After a semester of perusing the internet for coverage of the 2008 presidential election, the conclusion that I have come to is that there is a lot more “stuff” out there than I thought there would be. Media outlets are going beyond the traditional news story to offer new ways of coverage.

• USA Today has their state-by-state coverage map, offering local coverage by a national news service. The map itself is easy to navigate, attractive and informative.
  

• XM Radio launched at 24 hour election coverage station, POTUS ’08.

• CNN’s politics page has a whole section titled “Videos in Politics”

• YouTube and CNN hosted the “YouTube Debates.” The debates are citizen driven, with individuals submitting questions on YouTube. These questions are then used in moderated debates with the presidential hopefuls.

• More clips and full episodes from television are making their way onto the internet. Though this is not a new tactic, it continues to draw more people to the internet for their news. I watch Meet the Press with Tim Russert every week, but never on Sundays. The entire show is viewable online, with shorter clips from the episodes titled by content at the bottom of the page.

These are just a few of the examples of things that media outlets are doing to utilize new media and draw in readers. The interactive media is supplementing the news story, and in some cases, replacing it. That is not to downplay the import of the basic news story. It still is the most prevalent form of journalism around and the most easy to create. Still, media is tailoring their coverage to feed readers desires. It’s clear to see that it must be working, with more interactive tools coming up everyday.

Thoughts on the readings

While reading the Poynter article about the recent plagiarism case surrounding The Maneater, I was astonished to read that some people actually defended Merrill's actions. I think that most journalists of my generation, those who are in school now or who have recently graduated, would agree with me that lifting quotes from other people's articles without attribution is blatant plagiarism. Really - just blatant plagiarism. The definition of it in fact.

That's why I am so surprised that there are people who were defending Merrill's actions. Maybe it's a generational thing. I wonder if a different generation of journalists were trained differently. Maybe while they were in j-school things were done differently and the rules surrounding plagiarism were more blurry and open to interpretation.

In Merrill's response he says that he did not lift the authors written words, and though this is true, it does not make his lifting quotes right. The reporter from The Maneater conducted interviews to get those quotes. Those quotes were her property. And his lifting those quotes makes it look as though they were his property - as if he did the interviews.

While he is apologetic and while I believe he is sincere, I do think the paper did the right thing in canceling his column. If the mistake would have been made by a non-veteran writer, the decision would have been very clear ... fire the writer. Just because Merrill is a senior writer does not mean he should not be held to the same standards.

Study gets at student opinions on voting and the 2008 election

A new study conducted by American University and washingtonpost.com surveyed students from more than 75 colleges about what matters to them in the next election.

Most of the results weren't surprising. The war was the most important issue. The environment also seemed to be a big concern. If the election were held today, most would vote for Obama.

What is surprising is the fact that 96 percent of the students said they intended to vote. Disconnect? Of course. No where near 96% of students will vote. If 1/2 of students vote, that would be a good turn-out. If the intent is there, it really makes me wonder why more young adults don't vote. Laziness I would guess. Which is quite sad.

From an article about the study on washingtonpost.com:

And, with a year left until the election, about 82 percent said they were already registered to vote. This continues the trend that began with the 2004 election. Forty-seven percent of 18-to-24-year-olds voted in the 2004 election, up 11 points from 2000

Maybe students are finally going to get excited about politics again... think 1960s. It certainly seems like things are moving that way.