shelbinator.com

Last week, two new players announced their intention to enter the mainstream-ized political citizen journalism arena a la Choose or Lose. First up, Rock the Vote:

Rock the Vote in partnership with WireTap magazine is searching for aspiring or established reporters for Rock the Trail. Sponsored by AT&T, Rock the Trail will capture today’s politics through the eyes and in the words of young voters. Rock the Trail reporters will deliver insightful and compelling blogs, articles and videos from the communities they live in, reporting on young people’s top issues such as jobs, the economy and college affordability. Content will be posted on http://www.rockthevote.com, http://www.wiretapmag.org , http://www.BET.com, and will also be available for viewing on AT&T mobile phones.
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Rock the Trail reporters will be paid a monthly stipend and supplied with a laptop, cell phone and video camera to rock the 2008 campaign trail. Reporters will interview candidates, elected officials, campaigners, young voters and Rock the Vote artists discussing everything from the Presidential race to mayoral elections and anything in between.

That one will be interesting to field questions on at bloggergeek cocktail parties, because in my limited experience thus far I’ve found that a lot of people tended to conflate Choose or Lose with Rock the Vote. Whatever the collaboration in the past, I guess we’ll be “competitors” now. We’ll see whose guns are bigger: while their blog is “only” powered by Blogger, it at least has an RSS feed, so you’d presumably be able to subscribe to the videos produced with iTunes or the like. Our Flux-powered Think site still lacks this most basic and vital functionality, three and a half months after Professor Jay Rosen went slack-jawed at such an oversight. They’re only hiring five reporters who will only be paid a $500 monthly stipend, but (I may be over-speculating here) the suggestion that they’re getting cellphones makes me wonder if they’ll have a stronger focus on lower quality but more mobile content produced on, say, a Nokia N series phone. And if mobility and speed are of the essence, we’ll have to see what their editorial cycle and turnaround time looks like, once their selectees go through training and find out about the procedural roadblocks to funded journalism.

I also wonder how much actual music will appear in Rock the Vote news packages. Have you started to notice repeats in ours?

Next up, a much shorter-term collaborative effort between Voto Latino, Sí TV and CNN at CrashtheParties08.com. From a press release:

“Crash the Parties” kicks off with a nationwide search for two young Latinos to cover the Democratic and Republican National Conventions as reporters for Sí TV.
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Contestants upload their videos at www.crashtheparties08.com, discussing why they should represent young
Latinos at the conventions. The videos will also be viewable on V CAST from Verizon Wireless. Public voting begins on May 7, and a panel of judges, including actress and Voto Latino co-founder Rosario Dawson, former U.S. Representative from Texas Henry Bonilla, the Latino Democratic Institution’s Ramona Martinez, CNN’s Rick Sanchez, YouTube’s Steve Grove, Craigslist’s Craig Newmark, and MySpace’s Lee Brennan, will evaluate the top five candidates from each of the party submissions to select the winners. Rosario Dawson and actor Nicholas Gonzalez have recorded public service
announcements to help promote the project.

Sanchez will also mentor the young reporters, providing media tips and expert advice on interviewing the party nominees and others. They will report from the Conventions, live and online, offering their perspectives on the candidates, election, and issues.

The Choose are Lose plans for Convention coverage are still TBD.