Public Eye

Oldsters moan about the young not following politics the way we did -- except by watching that funny Jon Stewart. Old newsies double the kvetching by complaining that young journos, in the rush toward all things online, have lost the ability to write in-depth stories that don't need hyper-links, animation, graphics and interactivity to become "rich content."

Ya think A.J. Liebling needed video to tell what downing a dozen oysters and a cold carafe of Meursault was like, punk?

And then a curmudgeonly type comes across some student reporters producing Web-based campaign coverage that goes places Johnny Apple and the Boys on the Bus never dreamed of venturing and suddenly the good old days look rather limited.

That's what happened to me when I dropped into a USC Annenberg School for Communication lunchtime seminar Tuesday hosted by new school Director Geneva Overholser. The focus was Professor Marc Cooper's student fellows who reported on the presidential campaign this summer in a national program, News 21, funded by the Carnegie and Knight foundations.

As part of "The Western Edge: Campaign '08 in the Mountain West and Southwest," grad student Amanda Becker went next door, where she discovered: "Nevadan voters have been the most accurate predictors of presidential success since 1912. But to carry this important bellwether state in 2008, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain will have to ignore traditional campaign logic that centers on Las Vegas and instead run fierce operations in an oft-ignored swing area in this swing state: Reno and Washoe County."

Silver State papers immediately leaped at the chance to follow her lead. Not only that: Go to her story, link below, and you'll hear Western swing music from the Reno Rodeo.

Grad student Ryan Rivera went to Colorado to report "New Citizens, New Voters," where he discovered that many legal-immigrant Latinos long eligible to become Americans have finally done so this year in order to vote in November. His story, with his photos and soundbites, uncovers a new political quetion: "With tight races expected throughout the Mountain West and with Colorado the most contested of all, could these newest Americans determine the next president?"

Watching the presentations from the seminar table, Overholser said she was not only impressed -- the students made her "proud" to be the new J school director. "There is this whole new world that you all have put together," said the former editor of the Des Moines Register. "How terrific and rich this kind of reporting is. And at the heart of it is storytelling -- but how much more multi-dimensional."
Check it out at http://newsinitiative.org.