POLITICO MAFIOSO: One of TIM BEE's Interns a Finalist to be MySpace reporter at GOP Convention

UA student a finalist to be MySpace reporter at convention

McCain fan will be happy at either party's fete

Tucson Citizen

It's 3 a.m. The phone is ringing in the dark and University of Arizona student Sara Pat Badgley wants your vote so she can be the one to answer it.
Badgley was picked Monday as one of five finalists - and the lone woman - in a Web-based search looking for citizen journalists to cover the Democratic and Republican conventions.

I'm thrilled," said Badgley, a senior in family studies and human development and interdisciplinary studies. "McCain's been my senator my whole life. He was elected right before I was born, and this would be the first time I'd see him as our presidential nominee and the first time I'm of age to vote for him."

Sponsored by MySpace IMPACT, NBC and MSNBC, the MySpace Decision '08 contest began June 26 with an announcement on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," a news show that is targeted to the younger demographic.

People were invited to upload 2-minute videos to MySpace in which they explained why they should be convention citizen journalists. Points were given for having fun and being creative in the pitch.

A panel of judges, including the host of "Morning Joe," Joe Scarborough, a former Florida congressman, selected the finalists from about 100 entries. Badgley said it is now up to the public to watch the videos and vote for the two contestants they believe will do the best job at the conventions.

Badgley's video plays off Hillary Clinton's 3 a.m. "red phone" campaign ad. Badgley proclaims that her experience attending John McCain campaign events, papal visits and Hurricane Katrina-ravaged areas demonstrates that she can answer the phone and "get the scoop because I've done it before."

It also highlights her ability with multimedia and her expertise in multitasking: Badgley plays the roles of news anchor, field reporter, a "proud American" and a candidate in her Decision '08 video.

"The guidelines were to be creative and have fun and she certainly did," said Lee Brenner, executive producer of MySpace's political programming. "She utilized video and editing techniques well and the ability to use herself in different ways was very interesting to us. She clearly showed a passion for what we were trying to demonstrate."

Brenner said MySpace executives wanted to find a way to engage young voters in this year's presidential election and that desire was the genesis of Decision '08.
"We wanted to bring the momentum of the Internet into the campaign conventions and bring young people into the process," he said. "We approached NBC and their affiliates with the idea of partnering and providing content to MySpace users this way, and they were all for it."

The two winners will each receive a trip to either the Aug. 25-28 Democratic National Convention in Denver or the Sept. 1-4 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul. They will be given airfare, ground transportation, five nights hotel accommodations and a stipend for meals.

More important in Badgley's mind, though, is that winners will get full press credentials as citizen journalists.

Brenner said those credentials come with support from MSNBC journalists and access to video cameras, computers and anything else they need to report the convention for MySpace.

The videos and blogs posted by the citizen journalists during the convention will be posted to the MySpace IMPACT section of the social networking Web site.

For those who think young people visiting the site aren't interested in politics, a 2007 Nielsen Netratings study showed that MySpace users are more than twice as active in the online political community than average Internet users.

Badgley said she is an unabashed John McCain supporter and hopes, if she wins, that she will be sent to the Republican convention. MySpace IMPACT makes the final decision as to which convention the winners will cover.

"I'd applied to go to the Republican Convention, but I would love to go to either," she said. "I think I would do a really good job because I want to tell the stories of what is happening that might not be covered by the regular media."

The four other finalists include a guy who does a take-off of the "Morning Joe" show; another who boasts he knows so much about politics, "I can tell you what the Senate minority leader had for breakfast"; a Harvard Law School graduate and hip-hop artist who says he's "the Obama of rap"; and a guy who says he hasn't turned off MSNBC since November 2000.

Online voting for the Decision '08 citizen journalists concludes Monday. Winners will be announced Tuesday.

To vote for Sara Pat Badgley's MySpace Campaign '08 video or view all the citizen journalist entries, go to myspace.com/decision08