With a year to go before the 2008 US presidential elections, young Americans are poised to mark their growing engagement in politics with an ambitious online news site.

The creators of Scoop08.com, which was launched on November 4, say it will be the first to harness the power of students across the US to follow the campaign.

“We noticed there was a void when it came to national, grassroots, student journalism that really could have an impact on issues of importance,” said co-founder Alexander Heffner, 17.

Whether the venture sky-rockets or fizzles, its very existence reflects a social shift that candidates and major parties ignore at their peril. Namely, America’s young voters, traditionally seen as apathetic, are becoming more active voters — and there are more and more of them.

People aged 18-29 will make up 25 per cent of the electorate in 2008, according to the University of Maryland’s Centre for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Circle), up from 21 per cent in 2006.
They may account for a full third of the electorate by 2015, Circle predicts, although not all will register to vote.

Research by Rock the Vote, a non-partisan organisation that aims to educate and mobilise young voters, suggests that the increased youth vote played into the results in several tight races in 2006, including Democratic senate gains in Montana and Virginia. Those results flag up another reason why neither party can afford to ignore the youth vote: its apparent shift to the Left.

A Pew Research Survey in 2006 found that 58 per cent of young voters identified themselves as Democrats and 36 per cent as Republicans. A survey of the same demographic in 1991 found that 55 per cent of young voters saw themselves as Republican.

Rock the Vote polling and focus groups put the Iraq war as young voters’ number one concern, followed by economic issues such as the cost of college and healthcare. Next — and this is where differences can be seen with older age groups — come concerns about the environment, global warming and immigration.
Developments such as the use of social networking sites, including Facebook and MySpace, in campaigning have also been embraced by younger voters.

These innovations are in the armoury of Scoop08 as it prepares to compete with the mainstream media, said Heffner and co-founder Andrew Mangino, a 20-year-old Yale student. They plan to use video clips, blogs and podcasts on the site, as well as more conventional reports, to draw in a younger audience.

The site also intends to shed light on under-reported issues and the less-known presidential candidates, drawing on its geographically, ethnically and socially diverse team to do so.

Of course, the whole enterprise relies on the commitment of student reporters and editors who will be working for nothing, supported by an advisory board that includes established journalists and former presidential candidate Gary Hart.

BBC News