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From the PR Newsire this morning:

MTV Taps 51 State-Based Citizen Journalists for “Choose or Lose ‘08″

AP Online Video Network & Top Mobile Carriers to Distribute Weekly “Street Team ‘08″ Reports

Knight Foundation Grant Helps Power Mobile Media Election Coverage Experiment

NEW YORK, Dec. 20 /PRNewswire/ — MTV, as part of its Emmy-winning “Choose or Lose” campaign (http://www.ChooseorLose.com), today unveiled “Street Team ‘08″: a specially recruited group of 51 citizen journalists — one from every state and Washington, D.C. — who will cover the 2008 elections from a youth perspective and tailor their reports for mobile devices. The members will contribute weekly, multi-media reports (short form videos, blogs, animation, photos, podcasts) that will be distributed via a soon-to-launch WAP site, MTV Mobile, Think.MTV.com and to the more than 1,800 sites in the Associated Press Online Video Network. Carefully selected by MTV after an extensive nationwide search, the one-of-a-kind press corps will be armed with mobile media like laptops, video cameras and cell phones, and charged with uncovering the untold political stories that matter most to young people in their respective states

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The “Street Team ‘08″ program is made possible by a $700,000 Knight News Challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Knight News Challenge, at http://www.newschallenge.org, is an annual worldwide competition awarding $5 million for innovative ideas that use digital media to inform and inspire communities. The Knight Foundation plans to invest at least $25 million over five years in the search for bold community news experiments.

And yes, the punchline is that I am your humble Georgia correspondent citizen journalist. So after 20 hours of online training in Adobe Creative Suite and a two-day orientation in Manhattan next month, I am charged with uncovering the untold stories here in the Peach State.

You know what this means? I mean besides the fact that I’m about to get handed a superfancy new video camera and a (Windows) laptop (please God not Vista) and will be expected to file one story every week (through video, primarily, or text and photos or podcasts or what have you), and that the real shiny stories from the Street Team will get floated up to the MTV cable networks (while the rest remain online), and meanwhile I’ll be getting even less sleep and still have a dissertation to write.

It means I need untold stories. I bet you have stories. You’ve got an issue, a non-profit organization, a candidate, a crusade that you believe in, but you’ve got no platform. Well I’ve got me a very nice platform here, but I’m a little short on causes and crusades. So let’s get your chocolate in my peanut butter, if you know what I mean.

Seriously, who the hell ever thought that was a good advertising campaign for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? And right there is a highlight of one of the first overwhelming challenges this new opportunity presents to me and a handful of other Choose or Lose Street Team members™: Gen X, meet the Millennials. I know the boundaries are pretty hazy, but I’ve seen enough birth year ranges that say I got caught in the last few years of Gen X — and the real point of the matter is that in my frame of reference, getting someone’s peanut butter on your chocolate doesn’t imply the need for prophylactics! Yet now a handful of us CoLSTM’s™, ranging from 29 to 39, are going to have to craft a message a week for an audience that knows “I has a flavor” doesn’t imply the need for prophylactics, either.

I know, that’s a terrible example. See? I can’t even come up with a hip new dirty phrase that is not a sexual euphemism. So while obviously this is all great! and yay! and I’m totally stoked! (see? do kids still say that?) and I’m fired up for this opportunity, that’s also how I’m sure a lot of new Army Rangers feel when they get pinned, and they get their shiny new gun and body armor (sometimes) and night vision goggles and it’s all great! and yay! and then Welcome to Sadr City! and the yay! kinda takes a back seat to adrenaline and trying not to poop.

A representative of the Knight Foundation, which helps fund this project, summarized our call to arms (well, cameras) thusly:

“We hope to find out whether or not our most important political event — the election of a president — matters to young people, and whether or not it matters more when it comes to them through the lens of their issues and the screen of their cell phone,” said Eric Newton, VP/Journalism, Knight Foundation.

And as if to highlight the challenge for the recipients of the Knight News Challenge Grant, MTV issued another press release to the Newswire exactly two hours later:

* The finale of “A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila” delivered a 5.9 P12-34 rating to become the highest rated series telecast on MTV since August 2005.

* For the night (8PM-11PM), “A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila” finale was the most watched telecast across all of television among P12-34, even out-delivering broadcast.

* “The Hangover” Aftershow at 11PM averaged a strong 3.6 P12-34 rating, ranking right behind the “A Shot At Love” finale as the #2 rated cable telecast for the night.

How many people do you think I’ll be able to pull in to watch my live video coverage of the Iowa caucuses? I mean, without putting on the bikini, ’cause you know it’s pretty cold in Iowa this time of year.

But seriously, send your chocolate over to my peanut butter. We’ll talk.