Citizen journalist
NEWS RELEASE
December 20, 2007 – New York, NY – MTV, as part of its Emmy-winning “Choose or Lose” campaign (www.ChooseorLose.com), today unveiled “Street Team ’08”: a specially recruited group of 51 citizen journalists – one from every state and Washington, D.C. – who will cover the 2008 elections from a youth perspective and tailor their reports for mobile devices. The members will contribute weekly, multi-media reports (short form videos, blogs, animation, photos, podcasts) that will be distributed via a soon-to-launch WAP site, MTV Mobile, Think.MTV.com and to the more than 1,800 sites in the Associated Press Online Video Network. Carefully selected by MTV after an extensive nationwide search, the one-of-a-kind press corps will be armed with mobile media like laptops, video cameras and cell phones, and charged with uncovering the untold political stories that matter most to young people in their respective states.
“Street Team ‘08” members represent every aspect of today’s youth audience – from seasoned student newspaper journalists to documentary filmmakers, the children of once-illegal immigrants to community organizers. They are conservative, liberal, from big cities and small towns. The tie that binds them all is a passion for politics and a yearning to amplify the youth voice during this pivotal election. All of the “Street Team ’08” correspondents will begin reporting early next month, after an intensive MTV News orientation in New York City.
“Recent MTV research shows young people believe their generation will be a major force in determining who is elected in the upcoming local and national elections,” said Ian Rowe, VP of Public Affairs and Strategic Partnership, MTV, “and Street Team ’08 will be a key way for our audience to connect with peers, as well as get informed and engaged on the local and political issues that matter to them most. We’re proud to join with the Knight Foundation on this innovative experiment – which will also explore how coverage of youth-centric election issues can be an effective pathway to increased youth voter turnout and greater political and civic engagement.”
The “Street Team ’08” program is made possible by a $700,000 Knight News Challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Knight News Challenge, at www.newschallenge.org, is an annual worldwide competition awarding $5 million for innovative ideas that use digital media to inform and inspire communities. The Knight Foundation plans to invest at least $25 million over five years in the search for bold community news experiments.
“We hope to find out whether or not our most important political event – the election of a president – matters to young people, and whether or not if matters more when it comes to them through the lens of their issues and the screen of their cell phone,” said Eric Newton, VP/Journalism, Knight Foundation. “We also hope to find out what important youth issues are being overlooked by traditional media as the Street Team coverage goes beyond the presidential horse race.”
In addition to laptops and video cameras, each “Street Team” member will be equipped with best-in-breed tools that will aid in their reporting. Adobe Systems Incorporated is the exclusive software partner for the program, and as part of its Adobe Youth Voices global philanthropy program fostering youth self-expression, the company is outfitting each “Street Team” member with a copy of the Adobe® Creative Suite® 3 Production Premium package – a complete post-production solution, integrating Adobe's all-new video, audio and design tools. PNY Technologies, a leading supplier of memory modules, flash media, USB drives, graphic cards and other peripherals, and the official flash memory provider of MTV's Street Team '08, is donating high-end SD cards and USB flash drives for all of the correspondents.
A collaboration with the Associated Press will bring select “Street Team ‘08” reports to AP's Online Video Network, which encompasses more than 1,800 media sites with an aggregate reach of 61 million unique visitors. “AP is constantly adding to its already comprehensive coverage of the 2008 political campaign and this collaborative project fits in with our goal of providing an even wider range of multimedia content,” said Executive Producer for Online Video Kevin Roach.
All 51 of the “Street Team” members have active profiles on Think.MTV.com – MTV’s online community where young people, their friends and some of the biggest names in pop culture come together to bring about positive social change. The Think community, a dedicated WAP site, video services from the industry-leading carriers in the MTV Mobile family and the Associated Press’ Online Video Network will be the primary platforms for the correspondents’ reports. Select stories will also be showcased on other MTV platforms, including MTV, broadcast to 88 million subscribers domestically, MTV2, mtvU and MTV Tr3́s.
The Think Community (Think.MTV.com) is dynamic, multimedia-driven and enables youth to easily learn more about the issues that matter to them most, share their opinions – via uploaded online videos, podcasts and blogs – and connect with others to make a difference. The site is one of the only to reward members for positive actions taken online or off, serving up chances to hang out with socially conscious celebs, access to exclusive MTV events, exposure on MTV and other national media outlets, as well as grants, scholarships and more. Think.MTV.com was built with the help of financial support and expertise from founding partners the Case Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Goldhirsh Foundation and MCJ Amelior Foundation. For more information or to build a profile and become involved, visit Think.MTV.com.
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Dear Friend,
Last week, AlterNet's drug coverage won the
Edward M. Brecher Award for Journalism. But we need more funding to fully expose the miserable failure they call the
"war on drugs."
Make a gift to support our
special 2008 coverage.
Every year we think that the whole dumb, dirty travesty known as the "war on drugs" -- it's really a war on people -- is going to slow down. But it doesn't.
In fact, drug arrests are up. And, as The Washington Post reported, "the focus of the drug war in the United States has shifted significantly over the past decade from hard drugs to marijuana." And they're not even talking about pot dealers. Shockingly, almost nine out of ten of the all-time record 829,627 marijuana arrests made last year were for possession -- not for sales or trafficking, just for possession. That's one pot-related arrest every 38 seconds -- why are we wasting our tax dollars chasing after potheads?
As Rob Kampia of the Marijuana Policy Project wrote on AlterNet: "That's like arresting every man, woman and child in the state of North Dakota plus every man, woman and child in Des Moines, Iowa, on marijuana charges ... every year. By comparison, there were 611,523 arrests last year for all violent crimes combined."
Will you join AlterNet in exposing the miserable failure they call the "war on drugs"? It's a critical time for concerned citizens to fight back. We need $25,000 to kick off our "Drug Policy" Special Coverage for 2008. Make a contribution and help out.
Last week, at the Drug Policy Foundation's International Reform Conference in New Orleans, AlterNet's drug coverage won the Edward M. Brecher Award for Journalism. In the past, the award has gone to The Economist, Rolling Stone and Gary Trudeau, among others.
Winning the award has inspired us to do more. We publish important articles about the drug war every week. Many are read by 50,000 people or more. But we haven't had the funding to really hone in on the issue for more than two years. We need to hire an editor, re-launch our weekly newsletter, start conducting investigations and and start building partnerships with the people and organizations that are down in the trenches, fighting for a sane drug policy.
Simply put: We -- all of us -- need to get more serious, because the disastrous drug war keeps marching on. So we said to ourselves, "Duh! Let's ask our readers to help us." We need $25,000 to kick off our special coverage for 2008. Will you make a contribution and help us reach the $25,000 we need to kick off our Special Coverage?
We need to push back against the drug warriors in Congress and their cheering sections in the commercial media. The whole war on drugs makes no sense. That is, it doesn't make sense until you think about the money ... and the power of the words "war on" in "war on terror," "war on Iraq and Afghanistan," "war on immigrants," and of course, the "war on drugs." Every time "war on" is used, billions of our tax dollars get sucked up by an evermore expansive security state.
And more agents and narcs get hired, and more high-tech equipment is developed and purchased. Meanwhile, we send billions of dollars in military aid to developing countries for disastrous drug eradication programs that create nothing but violent conflict and bitter resentment as they wipe out the meager livelihoods of some of the world's poorest subsistence farmers. Our tax money isn't going for treatment, education or job training. The whole thing's cynical and destructive, and there's no end in sight. And it makes us angry.
The war on drugs brings a lot of collateral damage: wasted money, eroded civil liberties, mistaken targets and the criminalization of large numbers of our young people.
But we can't get depressed. We have to fight back. We'll do our part -- finding the truth, keeping you informed, mobilizing people to take action. Can we count on you to help us?
Thanks for all that you do,
Don Hazen
Executive Editor
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December 20, 2007 12:37 PM
Smith, Lieberman Want Partner Benefits for Federal Employees
A bill introduced by Republican senator Gordon Smith and Democratic senator Joe Lieberman along with 19 cosponsors would grant domestic partner benefits to federal employees.
Under the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act for 2007, federal employees and their domestic partners would be eligible for federal health benefits, the Family and Medical Leave program, long-term care, insurance, and retirement benefits, according to a statement released Wednesday by Smith and Lieberman. Same-sex couples would also assume the same obligations that apply to married employees and their spouses, such as antinepotism rules and financial disclosure requirements.
"It's time for the federal government to catch up to the private sector, not just to set an example but so that it can compete for the most qualified employees and ensure that all of our public servants receive fair and equitable treatment," Connecticut's Lieberman said in the statement. "It makes good economic and policy sense. And it is the right thing to do."
"The federal government should be leading the way rather than following when it comes to providing benefits," Smith, an Oregon senator, said. "Rights and benefits must be afforded to all employees equally. This bill corrects the current inequity."
Based on the experience of private companies and state and local governments, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that offering benefits to same-sex domestic partners of federal employees would increase the cost of those programs by less than one half of 1%. (The Advocate)
A Teacher Can Only Teach A Student To Grow
As Far As S/He Has Learned To Grow Her/Himself
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December 20, 2007 12:39 PM