Last Updated: December 29, 2000
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American voters — unplugged
Gen Y is multi-media
By Noelle Straub
Newspaper coverage of elections and politics for the most part isn’t
tailored to interest younger readers. Often it focuses on how voter turnout
among the age group has declined over the past three decades. Typically,
reporters do not quote the opinions of 19-year-olds or show the behind-the-scenes
work, much of it done by young people, that goes into campaign events.
Why should young people read articles in which they don’t see themselves
reflected?
As part of a project called “YVote2000: Politics of a New Generation,”
created by the Medill News Service, I have addressed that question, traveling
the country talking to 18- to 24-year-olds.
The news for newspapers isn’t all bad. As part of the project, a poll
of 1,000 18- to 24-year-old Americans was conducted in June by the nonpartisan
research firm Campaign Study Group. Like the rest of America, the respondents
said their primary news sources were local television news, nightly network
newscasts and the local daily paper.
But respondents also used cable news networks and other sources: 49
percent said they got news about the presidential campaign from late night
talk shows at least some of the time. Forty percent said they sometimes
get campaign news from the Internet.
What can newspapers do to make political news more appealing to young
people?
I talked to young people who weren’t interested in politics and asked
why. Some just plain didn’t care. But many felt they didn’t have enough
information to make an informed vote.
Others didn’t seem to see how politics and voting made an impact on
their everyday lives.
To make my political stories appeal to young people, my first priority
was to write about issues that affected them.
Take education, one of the top issues this year. When we asked young
people who listed education as a priority to explain what they meant, they
wanted to know the candidates’ positions on school safety and financing
higher education.
We also thought young people would be more likely to read stories about
people their own age. Every story we wrote quoted primarily young people’s
varying opinions about the issues, from the environment to gun violence
to government corruption.
My fellow YVoters and I also came up with political stories about young
people not being covered elsewhere, like whether they had any political
heroes.
To counter the stereotype of disinterested youth, we found a ton of
young people actively involved in the campaigns. At the two main candidates’
national headquarters, we talked to teens and twenty-somethings, from those
who photocopied and got coffee to those helping set policy.
And we talked with young political figures, including George P. Bush
and Karenna Gore Schiff, as well as young people running for office.
We also tried to make the coverage fun. I wrote a story comparing the
entertainment the two parties hired for their annual fundraisers: Robin
Williams and Lenny Kravitz vs. KC and the Sunshine Band.
We tried to use different story-telling techniques, writing in a less-formal
style that might appeal to a younger audience. One of our reporters worked
with MTV, covering the campaigns with attitude.
Like any age group, young people are more likely to read stories that
reflect themselves and their issues. But they’d like to have a little fun
with it, too.
Noelle Straub just completed her master's degree in journalism from
the Medill School of Journalism. She participated in YVote from March through
August.
