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Idea Lab is a group blog by innovators who are reinventing community news for the Digital Age.
Each Idea Lab blogger is a winner of the Knight News Challenge grant to reshape community news.
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Mobile Reporting Gave Raw View of Political Conventions
The most dramatic example of how our mobile coverage played out was on the final night of the Republican National Convention. While thousands were preparing to cheer McCain’s speech inside the convention center, our Wisconsin reporter, Charlie, was hot on the trail of an anti-war protest gearing up outside. His “tweets” began…
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Street Team Exclusive: Palin Liked Romney, Paul In Primaries
Back in February, on Super Tuesday, MTV News/Knight Foundation Street Teamer Dani Carlson did a Flixwagon mobile phone interview with Alaska Governor -- and now presumptive Republican vice-presidential candidate -- Sarah Palin, who had some interesting things to say about energy policy and the "party machinery." In this interview, Palin calls controversial Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul "cool." "He's a good guy," she added. "He's so independent. He's independent of the party machine. I'm like, 'Right on, so am I.' " She also spoke about feeling allegiance with former presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. "He said all the right things about...
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Virtual Voting: Finding Our Audience Where They Roam
Now that we are several months into the project, we thought we had conquered, or at least tackled, most forms of new media. Our Street Teamers’ work appears regularly on mobile video carriers, a mobile wap site, several websites, and on-air via MTV’s broadcast networks.
Then, a few weeks back, I was approached by an MTV colleague about a whole new area of distribution that, I have to admit, I had hardly considered before: THE VIRTUAL WORLD. I’m talking about something right outta web 3.0: a 3-D, interactive, virtual reality experience where one can have a “second life” via their avatar persona—a walking, talking, digital version of their better selves--online.
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Street Team Honors Young Vets for July 4
Throughout the primaries, a number of issues have recurred with young people, whether it be gas prices, the environment, education or the war. Yet, one statistic has broken through, and it is that MTV Research recently reported that nearly 70% of 18-29 year-olds personally know someone who has fought in Iraq, a staggering number that uniquely defines this generation. So we believed that it is of vital importance to hear the stories of our young soldiers returning home from war.
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MTV/Knight Choose or Lose Street Team '08 - Leaning Local
The premise of our MTV/Knight Choose or Lose Street Team '08 is that the path to civic participation and becoming a voter is different for everyone, particularly among today's youth. Frequently, young people disconnect the issues that concern them most, from the act of voting - on the premise that their individual vote won't make a difference, or that the news media nor the political candidates NEVER speak about the issues THEY care about most. The job of each Street Team '08 member is to determine what is important to youth in their states, and get young people engaged in...
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Super Tuesday was an historic day with incredible youth turnout at the polls (doubling, tripling and even quadrupling turnout from 2000 & 2004!) and so we were making our own history at MTV covering the youth vote in a whole new way - in this case, capitalizing on a new achievement in mobile technology, delivering real-time high-quality Internet-ready audio and video reporting from the campaign trail.
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Young Americans Want New Kind of Election Coverage
We listened. More than any time in human history, young people have more tools at their avail to consume - and create - information on the issues that are most relevant to them. So to figure out exactly what MTV's approach would be to truly engage young people aged 18-30 during this Presidential election cycle in this new, Wild West era of self-publishing and self-organization, we first had to listen to what young people themselves said they wanted. The results were simultaneously disheartening and hopeful, in the way only young people can express themselves about their future. The MTV/CBS News/New...
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