I am a professor and head of journalism at the University of Washington, and on Thursday, Feb. 28, a dozen undergraduate students and I will travel to Texas to cover the presidential campaigns and March 4 primary and caucuses. We'll be based in Austin, and will be on the move to places like San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, heck maybe even Corpus Christi. We'll be writing for our website, seattlepoliticore.org, huffingtonpost, and a number of traditional news outlets around the Northwest. Our website is read by a large number of Northwest youth -- and some kossacks, thanks!
So, here's the thing: we want your input. We are looking for ideas -- anything you think the traditional media are missing or not giving adequate attention.
Obama and Clinton supporters: this is your chance to drive some of the media conversation about the Texas campaigns and dynamics. Fire away. And please recommend this diary so a large number of readers get a chance to feed us suggestions.
More info below.
This is the culmination of a course in which we've been covering the 2008 presidential campaigns on both sides of the partisan aisle. It all began with an early January class visit by dailykos blogger mcjoan, and ever since my students and I have been stepping deeply into the world of politics and blogging. We've covered caucuses in Idaho and in Washington state. After the Clinton and Obama campaigns came to Seattle in early February, I wrote about my students' experiences. The Obama campaign came out looking good, the Clinton campaign not so much.
Now I want to come at the Texas coverage from two perspectives -- via the campaigns again (to see how they treat us this time) AND from the netroots. And ground zero for the liberal roots is dkos. We're reaching out to conservatives too, to get ideas on the GOP mashup matchup. But I'm betting you'll have a lot more to offer.
There's no way we can take up every idea, of course, but I can promise you these things:
- We'll be fair about the ones we do dive into. We have no candidate-centered agenda. Our only agendas are to understand politics, campaigns, and to become better journalists.
- We'll approach this as citizen journalists, not jaded, seen-it-all-before, yawn Washington insiders. We want to understand and give voice to what's happening on the ground.
- We're open to being transformed along the way. That's what a class and experience like this is all about.
So help us please -- offer ideas. The more specific info you can provide, the better. Ideas, places to go, people/orgs to call, events to cover, whatever. If you want to suggest something but don't want it broadcast it on dkos, email me at domke@u.washington.edu.
It's in your hands. We're ready.