Here's one reason students Barack the vote: respect

The Obama, John McCain, Ron Paul, and Mike Huckabee campaigns in Washington and Idaho treated young journalist-bloggers from the UW like pros. The Hillary Clinton campaign couldn't be bothered.

By David Domke

Since early January, 16 of my journalism students at the University of Washington have been covering the 2008 presidential campaign. We’ve gone new media, adopting a mode of blogging that combines traditional reporting, insights from other news outlets, and first-person commentary. It’s somewhere between the voice of The Seattle Times’ David Postman and the rancor of the blogosphere: part journalism, part pundit, part political newbies. Altogether, we have presented the campaign through youthful eyes.

Our forum has been Seattlepoliticore.org, and our material has gotten play at The Huffington Post, The Seattle Times, the Idaho Statesman, and a number of blogs for which my students write. We’ve covered Democratic Party caucuses in Idaho — the state’s Republicans don’t use this method to select delegates — and the caucuses and primaries of both parties around King County, including Seattle proper and the Eastside suburbs. Later this week, we head to Texas for our grand finale: coverage of the March 4 primary and caucuses. (Yes, Texas has both, too, challenging Washington’s delegate process for most-screwed-up status.) It just might be the last big contest for all of the campaigns.

It’s been a powerful experience for us, both as students and citizens.

We spent two hours stuck at Snoqualmie Pass, working via cell phones and wireless network cards, and then sped to Coeur d’ Alene to see Northern Idahoans brave ice and freezing weather to give Barack Obama 80 percent of their caucus votes. We were barred from entering the Republican caucus in the 37th Legislative District in Seattle's Rainier Beach neighborhood — until the Seattle City Library and a sheriff’s deputy intervened — and scored an on-camera interview with Gov. Chris Gregoire at a Democratic caucus in the Magnolia neighborhood. We saw Mercer Island and Sammamish Dems and Repubs conduct themselves with calm and citizen pride.

And along the way we learned some important things about the Obama and Clinton campaigns. We didn’t set out to learn these pieces — but the campaigns taught us loud and clear.

In our coverage of the Idaho and Washington state caucuses, there emerged a lean toward Obama in my students’ writing about the Democratic contest. This pro-Obama frame occurred for three reasons:

Because some of the students have serious political crushes on him, even though they’ve tried to keep all this in check. He inspires them — and I haven’t sought to squelch this, being a prof interested in helping students become citizens.
Because the class is set up as a blogging class, in which politics meets alternative journalism. So their opinion shines through in places, and this was fine as long as they didn’t cross over into fan mail.

Because the Obama campaign treated us like pros — they called us back within minutes, set up interviews, got us press passes, went out of their way to make the campaign accessible. The Clinton campaign, in contrast, didn’t return a single phone call, didn’t provide press access, and did virtually nothing to encourage our coverage. It was either arrogance or disorganization on the Clinton campaign’s part.

Here’s one example: Jeff Giertz, the Obama team’s on-the-ground point person for the press, answered my phone call when I called to ask about press access to the Obama event on Feb. 8 at KeyArena. He said he’d check on getting passes for my students. I figured I’d wait and see if he actually did. Within five minutes he e-mailed me back, saying it was a go, and he could provide four press passes for my students. I was impressed. Clearly he had a vested interest in getting college students into the press area — and he did what a campaign person should do: He treated us well and welcomed us to his candidate. He told me to call him anytime.

So I did.

Lots of my students wanted to cover this event, so I called Giertz back six hours later and asked for four more passes. He said yes. The next day, when some of my students arrived at KeyArena after the local police had locked the doors and weren’t allowing anyone in — including reporters from local TV and radio outlets — the students dialed up Giertz and he personally came and vouched for them. He followed up the day after the event with an e-mail checking in on how I thought things went.

I don’t for a moment think he did all this just to be a nice guy. He had motives, of course. Still, it’s telling that I made the exact same pitch about “access to college students” to the Clinton campaign, and they didn’t do anything to facilitate our coverage.

Here’s a comment from one of my students, Jennifer Ware:

I noticed a difference between Obama and Clinton when I first started calling their campaigns in the week before the caucuses. At that point Washington state seemed like an afterthought for the Clinton campaign. Hillary wasn’t anywhere to be found in Seattle, but Obama had a campaign office in the heart of Pioneer Square. He had for months, and everyone there seemed more than happy to help.

When I called the Clinton campaign to ask for a contact at their Washington state campaign office, one staffer tried to tell me that Washington was where their campaign headquarters is. "Yes" she said, "Washington, it’s right next to Virginia."

Obama had the foresight to know he might need Washington state, whereas Clinton apparently never thought she’d have to reach this far. And a tiny part of me felt excluded.

Every single person I’ve dealt with from the Obama campaign was upbeat, positive and helpful. Even when the press couldn’t initially get into the venue on Friday for Obama’s speech, and a reporter from The Seattle Times was yelling at one of the volunteers, she handled it with poise and kindness. It was almost so good it looked staged, but she was real. She said, 'I’m just a volunteer from Shoreline, I’ve never done this before, please bear with me.' Even as Obama volunteers managed mobs of people at KeyArena, they did it with purpose, not burden.

And I think it’s because they feel part of a movement.

John McCain spoke in Seattle (the same day) to about 500 people at the Westin Hotel’s conference room. Clinton spoke to a gathering of 5,000 at a waterfront pier (on February 7). Obama spoke at Key Arena, home to the Seattle Supersonics; it seats 18,000 and it wasn’t nearly big enough. People were sitting on the stairs, in the aisles. Seasoned reporters were smiling and nodding softly as he spoke. Some people had tears in their eyes when he came on stage. There’s all kinds of spin out there, but you simply can’t spin those numbers. Or the stark contrast to the others in the race.

When my students had trouble reaching the Clinton campaign in the run-up to the caucuses, I made a call to her national office. I figured that maybe they’d respond to a UW professor better than a student — which would be an error on their part, but still one that we might use to help our coverage. I told them we were having trouble reaching people — anyone — on the ground in Washington state with the Clinton campaign, and I implored them to make sure my request on behalf of my students for press access to Clinton’s event in Seattle received a response. They assured me I’d hear from them. I emphasized my point a second time. They kindly repeated that I would certainly hear from people on the ground here.

I’m still waiting for that call.

The Obama and Clinton campaigns weren’t the only ones to come to town. On the Republican Party side, Ron Paul held a rally on the UW campus. Janet Huckabee held a rally at Northwest University, and her campaign team reached out to my students covering her husband’s candidacy — returning calls and making sure they had press access. McCain’s campaign aides went out of their way to let my students know about his press event at the Westin, and to get them in. For those scoring at home, five presidential campaigns came to town — and four reached out to my students, treating them like what they are: journalists and citizens.

It seems that the take-home point here is this: The Clinton campaign has made the case that Obama is nothing but rhetoric; he’s supposedly all words, while she’s all action. Our experiences showed us that their campaigns — at least in Seattle — were exactly the opposite. In their treatment of my students, Clinton’s campaign was all talk, while Obama’s was all walk.

It suggests to me that the Obama campaign’s appeal to younger people is not just because of Obama himself. It’s a campaign that treats young people like full adults. And across Washington state, Obama crushed Clinton, defeating her in every county in the state. It’s been a pattern repeated in every contest since.

David Domke is a professor of communication and head of journalism at the University of Washington. He is the co-author, with Kevin Coe, of The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America, published in January 2008 by Oxford University Press. You can reach him in care of editor@crosscut.com. Read more!

Getting the voter’s pulse...where it counts

By Frank James IV
Depaul Graduate Journalism

For Super Tuesday I went out into the community and covered seven voting precincts; six in fourth ward, one in third ward. This experience enabled me to be on the front lines of the election process. By going to these poll locations I was able to meet and talk to people who were usually not thought about during elections, the election officials. I also had the experience of facing adversity while getting the information I needed for this paper.

The first poll I went to was 4th Ward precinct 40. The atmosphere was upbeat and energetic. Carmelita, the election official, was open about the voting going on in her precinct. “There have been more men than women voting so far,” she stated. While I was there three males voted. Carmelita went on to say, “The African American men were making a stand today.” I talked to one male who was going in to vote, saying he felt that it was time for a change.

Carmelita talked about the wide range of ages that had come in to vote. She stated that the age’s ranges from 20’s to 40’s, both male and female. She talked about one elderly woman who came in and told them that she had voted for Franklin Roosevelt that was how long she had been voting.

From there I went to precinct 46 of the 4th ward in the basement of a church. The atmosphere was not as energetic at this poll. It was here that I was asked to vacate the premises. I was talking to one election judge when another asked for credentials. I informed her that I was a DePaul student doing a class project. She insisted that I could not be there without credentials from whatever candidate I was from. I reiterated the point that I a student to no avail I had to leave. This made me want to go to as many polls that I could get to. I wanted to see if every poll would ask me for credentials.

I proceeded to go to the 3rd precinct of the 4th ward. The election official, Debra, had no problem with me observing. She told me that they had an excellent turnout. There was plenty of enthusiasm amongst the voters. I observed many elderly citizens voting. As I was taking notes another election official came over and asked me how long I was going to be there. She proceeded to inform me that I could not be there and I had to leave. I left because I had all the information I needed.

My next stop was the 14th precinct of the 4th ward located in King High School. The election official I talked to was Cynthia. She told me both young and old of both sexes had been coming out. She said that some of the 18 year old King students had come down and voted. She also told me about how some parents of mentally challenged individuals assisted their children in voting. One African American male made the statement that he, “Just wanted to vote for Obama.”

From there it was on to the 20th precinct of the 4th ward. This poll was in Donoghue Charter School. This poll was inside of a cramped library. The election official, who asked not to be identified, told me that they had a good turnout. She then proceeded to ask me to leave because I could not stand there and observe. Before I left I noticed that there were a number of voters in the poll.

At the 51st precinct of the 4th ward the line was around the lobby. People were looking tired but devout. The poll was in the lobby of an apartment building located in the Lake Meadows complex on 31st street. I think many of the voters had just gotten off of work. It was crowded and the official didn’t have time to talk to me. The majority of the voters were African American females with children.

My last stop was the 23rd precinct of the 3rd ward at the Chicago Bee Library. The election official told me that they were experiencing good turnout. She added that the African American males were making their presence felt in the polls. The atmosphere was energetic and the people were upbeat and friendly.

I learned from my experience on Super Tuesday. It was good to be working on a project that tied in so closely with a current event. I felt like those journalists from the video in class in New York who had to work to get the story. The adversity I faced from some of the election judges made me want the information I needed even more. I wanted to know if I would be questioned about credentials at all of the polling stations or was it just the one. I found out that some precincts did not mind me observing, there was only one that demanded credentials. Other precincts were open or answered my questions before asking me to leave.

If I had to do this again I would choose covering the polls over sitting in a candidates campaign headquarters. The interaction I got from the people I met made me enjoy doing the project. I like the energy of the polling places and the feel of tracking down the story. I feel this was a positive experience and will come in handy later in my professional career. Read more!

Board of Elections isn’t...what it used to be

By Lindsey McElroy
Depaul Graduate Journalism

On Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008, I volunteered at the City Board of Election, located in downtown Chicago at 69 W. Washington. I prepared myself ahead of time for a night of organized chaos and was surprised to find that is was fairly calm. One other volunteer and I covered select city races for the Chicago Sun Times (States Attorney, Recorder of Deeds, and the Board of Review). Ultimately, the paper was only interested in the numbers for the State’s Attorney race.

Unfortunately it turned out that the internet was updating faster than the screens we were watching so the editors were getting most of their information online. However, we continued to call in updated numbers as soon as we had them. According to people on site, the City Board used to be the place where it all happened - people crowded around screens, reporters shouting numbers over their cell phones - I can imagine it was very exciting.

I think the great part about my experience is that we were seeing firsthand the transition from reporters relying on this traditional system to now relying more on the web, which is in line with our coursework at DePaul.

One veteran volunteer pointed out that despite being trumped by the internet, our presence at the Board lent some credibility to the Sun Times as they were able to say they got their information from Sun Times employees on the scene as opposed to a random online source.

We saw a few judges and aldermen come through to get updates - most of whom I think were either coming from or heading to the bar. Radio and print reporters were on the scene to interview Board employees on the successes and errors of the voting system, including the 20 votes that were lost due to employee error at the polling place.

Telemundo had a crew on our floor that recorded stand-ups and conducted interviews. My understanding is that many of the local networks were set-up downstairs on the county floor.

It was bit of a late night but overall a great learning experience. Prior to Super Tuesday, I had zero knowledge of the behind-the-scenes voting process. In reading articles and watching newscasts the following day, I was able to understand references to the percentage of precincts reported, the relationship between city and county numbers, and the reporters’ source of information. Read more!

Reporters play...a waiting game

By Giovanna Teolis
Depaul Graduate Journalism

The Chicago Board of Elections is an office designated to helping users with information regarding their voting needs such as voter status, polling places, and election results. I had an informative experience shadowing Charlie Wojciechowski, NBC-TV 5 News reporter, who covered the election results as they were tallied, any malfunctions at the polls, as well as the turnout of voters in comparison to previous years.

First, I was assigned to intern with Anna Devlantes ,who reported from the Obama Campaign at the Hyatt Regency. It turned out that NBC was having trouble getting reporters and cameramen into the campaign, so I was unable to work with Davlantes. I felt better at the Chicago Board of Elections because I had more time to observe and speak to Wojciechowski and his producer.

When the NBC 5 team arrived at the sight, we settled in for a good spot among a few other network reporters including Pam Zekman from CBS 2 as well as Chuck Goudie from ABC 7.

The night began around 3:00PM when Wojciechowski needed tape edited into a package. Earlier in the day, he went out to interview voters at the polling places about their experiences with the voting process. This package was to air on the 4:00PM broadcast of NBC News.

Already I was able to witness Wojciechowski’s sharpness and accuracy. He had a mind for words and an eye for presentation. He knew right away the quotes that he wanted to use in the full package and he quickly, yet thoroughly, wrote a script to use in the piece. The product was complete in a matter of minutes. He produced two full packages that were to air on the news broadcasts as well as two interviews and live stand-ups.

When I told others that I was accompanying Wojciechowski for Super Tuesday coverage at the Chicago Board of Elections, I heard many negative comments about the assignment. In my opinion, the negative comments turned out to be pretty accurate for the most part---It consisted of waiting and waiting for the results to come in and making calls to find out information regarding any malfunctions with the voting process.

Although I greatly enjoyed my experience with Wojciechowski, I do not think that it was completely necessary for a reporter to be stationed at the Chicago Board of Elections when they could get the same information from other sources. Wojciechowski did, however, obtain two interviews with the Cook County Clerk, David Orr, as well as Chairman of the Chicago Board of Elections, Langdon Neal.

One of the major stories that Wojciechowski covered during the night was the voter turnout. The Chicago Board of Elections predicted a record turnout for voters this year because of the success that they had from early voters. Four hours after the polls closed, the Chicago Board of Elections reported a voter turnout of 51 percent in the Chicago area. Although this number did not break a record, it is the highest voter turnout since the 1992 presidential primary.

At the time this story was compiled, there were no major problems at the polling places except for minor machine mishaps at those polling places using electronic machinery for the first time. Most of the polling places opened on time (except for a handful, but those were delayed no more than 20 minutes), except one polling place on the Northwest side had to stay open until 8 PM because the voting equipment was delivered to the wrong location.

Wojciechowski as well as the other reporters at the Chicago Board of Elections emphasized that the rain and bad weather played a major role in voter turnout. Weathermen predicted extremely bad weather to hit the Chicago area (obviously, we did not get that weather until the following day); however, it only rained beginning around 4:00 PM, when most people would be heading out to vote.

Whether or not this was the case for lower than expected voter turnout, the reporters (that I was around) made sure to emphasize this idea in each of their reports. Some reports also said that there was machinery malfunction in Lake County because of the weather (which impacted telephone lines and delayed transmission of vote totals), so poll workers hand delivered ballots to the county clerk’s office.

Another important story that Wojciechowski reported was “the case of the invisible ink.” This bizarre incident occurred in the 42nd precinct of the 49th ward when election judges handed about 20 voters plastic styluses to mark up paper ballots.

The voters were told to mark their ballot with a stylus that contains to no ink and is not a pen. According to the reports, the judges then told the voters that it was ok if nothing showed up on the paper because it is invisible ink. The election judges then put the ballot into the machine, which worked right, and rejected the ballot as an unmarked ballot (a blank ballot).

Although investigators were sent out to the scene to search for clues of malicious intent, they concluded that it was a mistake and “utter stupidity”.

Besides the stories, I was interested in learning about the entire process as a broadcast reporter (research, interviews, editing film, filming, etc.). Wojciechowski took the time to explain what was going on and his whole process for creating a story. He amazed me when he would do live stand-ups.

Since I had the opportunity to be around other reporters, I observed each of them as well as their process before going on air with the story. Wojciechowski used minimal notes (except when he needed to report facts) and was able to put together a flawless and eloquent sounding report on the spot, whereas some other reporters spent lots of time writing and memorizing exactly what they would say live on air.

My experience did not have anything to do with reporting on the candidates, which I thought would have been the most exciting. I feel as though I had a great learning experience with Wojciechowski because I was able to understand more about the business that I am striving to enter.

The stories that he reported were interesting, but the whole atmosphere of the Chicago Board of Elections and the day, Super Tuesday, were enough to keep me interested until midnight that night. It was a very long night as I met Wojciechowski around 2:30PM and did not get back to NBC until after midnight.

Essentially, as it was explained to me, it is all about who you know and what they can tell you. He was making phone calls to many people in Chicago politics to find a story.

We waited around for most of the night, but when that one story broke (whether it was machine malfunction in Lake County or “the case of the invisible ink”), it was extremely busy, exciting, and worth the wait. Read more!

Super Tuesday at the Trib

By Erin Osmon
Depaul Graduate Journalism

"Alright, let's make a paper. Who wants to start the walk and talk?” asked the Vice President and Editor of the Chicago Tribune. I was seated on the sideline at the Page One Meeting and it was Super Tuesday, a huge news day. This was the start of my evening spent observing the newsroom at The Trib. As I would find out, this very prestigious sounding Page One Meeting would not turn out to be of much consequence, and would end just under the twenty minute marker.

I spent most of the evening at The Tribune shadowing the Associate Editor of National News. Prior to the Page One Meeting she told me it will be an out of the ordinary Page One Meeting as everything had already been decided the day before. It basically served as a confirmation of what was to come. She invited me to come back any time, to attend a Page One Meeting on a "normal day".

Stories presented in the page one meeting included: Roger Clemens and Bob Knight from Sports, Congressional and State's Attorney races from Metro, Hammas militants in the Gaza Strip from Foreign, the effect of The Service Sector on Wall Street from Business, and a campaign round up from National. After each presentation the VP would call out the name of the next editor until all sections had been covered.

Amidst rank and file section offers, an interesting question surfaced: How might the winter storm, scheduled to hit Chicago that evening affect the first edition? Deadlines had already been pushed back an hour, from eleven to midnight, for all political stories. The concern was with a late deadline, and a storm on the way, The Trib's delivery trucks might not be able to make it to all four delivery zones before the storm became too severe. The paper might not reach a large portion of its readership. The conundrum: "Do we keep the midnight deadline, and not be able to deliver an up to date paper?" Or, "Do we scale back deadlines and have the ability to deliver a not so up to the minute paper?" The decision: tentatively scale back deadlines fifteen minutes until further notice.

Seated next to me was an Italian journalist. He was based in Washington DC and was in Chicago to cover Senator Barack Obama's gathering at the Hyatt Regency hotel. The room provided to the journalists by Obama's campaign was, according to him, completely devoid of an Internet signal. This was problematic as his job was to email updates to his paper in Milan. The man had been a Nieman Fellow with the VP at Harvard, and she had given him access to The Trib's newsroom that evening. He would spend the rest of the night running up and down Michigan Ave, making journalistic and political small talk with me between sprints.

This was just one of the manifestations of friendliness and acceptance I experienced at The Chicago Tribune that evening. It made me realize that even these serious journalists were, at a base level, human. That this cut throat, competitive image we see in movies was, perhaps, a bit fabricated. It seemed their profession only furthered their respect and compassion for fellow humans and budding journalists, even if you are a Neiman Fellow.

In the nine hours I intermittently spent with the editor I was shadowing, the most important thing, perhaps, that I observed was her ability to engage the rest of the staff. She mingled with everyone from the Political Source Editor, a Production Designer, and the cleaning lady. It seemed that people genuinely could and wanted to interact with her and she would introduce most everyone by their title and then as her friend. Throughout the evening I would received many warm welcomes the The Trib and "to the industry".

But it wasn't warm fuzzy small talk that made the rest of my evening at The Trib a success. It was quick and smart decision making I observed. It was the people who seemed so genuinely concerned about their work. It was the opportunity to interact, help out, and feel like a part of a huge news day that left me feeling, maybe, a little inspired.

I sat in on a meeting concerning content for the rest of the first section, what to put where, and how to fill up a page six that still needed content. An important question that was raised was whether to run a "conservatives piece" (an article by reporter Tim Jones about the political right being suspicious of and attacking Senator John McCain) along with the "John McCain piece" on page three. Would it be in poor taste? Would it make the page more interesting? Would it be too much emphasis on the Republican side? The group ultimately decided to run them together. The rationale was that the Democratic race would remain in the air after Tuesday, while McCain would emerge as the definitive Republican front runner. Coverage of the tornadoes that hit the South that very evening would fill up page six, bumping a story about the Christian holiday of Lent and a story about tainted fish.

After that meeting, I had to opportunity to sit in with other teams in the newsroom. I sat in with one of the Source Editors who was doling out political coverage as information arrived. It was, by definition, ordered chaos (in the best way possible). I also sat at the Copy Desk where four Editors sat checking a rechecking all of the non political stories that had been submitted earlier in the day.

"The storm will hit around 11," one Editor told me as she added symbols and yellow highlights to the large PC screen five inches from her face. She wasn't talking about the snow. I also sat in with the Photo Editors who were busy uploading regional and national political images submitted from their guys in the field, for use on Tribune Interactive as well as the first edition. I finished with the Production team, and finally the Interactive Team.

Interactive was where I was invited to participate in the process. The two producers I worked with were in charge of updating the political page of the website, as well as sending out email alerts to other news organizations and subscribers as each state primary had been “called” (made official) by The Tribune.

The goal was to call states in an email alert first. This was successful in some instances and not in others, which is the way it generally goes (I would learn). I had a great time working with the two producers, and left with a very positive impression of the interactive team. They were timely and exercised good judgment, worked well under pressure, and still had fun.
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