Welcome back to another year of Political Buzz.
We’re going to do things a little differently this time around. More journalism, less blogging. Political Buzz will feature interviews, in-depth articles, and some investigation into where the candidates really stand on the issues. We’d like to be your one-stop shop for campaign information.
Let’s face it. Our generation doesn’t pay a whole lot of attention to politics. We’d much rather read about our favorite bands than read the news, and we get our news from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report as much as from CNN.
We don’t find ignoring the mainstream media necessarily a problem here at Kaffeine Buzz. We see a lot of problems with the news these days (don’t get us started please) and particularly with political coverage, which typically looks more like WWE wrestling coverage—nasty, shallow, and fake.
There’s plenty of independent news available—you just have to dig for it. And a lot of people don’t have the time, so they simply tune out. They know that the mainstream news is phony, or just misses the point, focusing on the 10,000th missing pretty girl rather than the issues that most of us struggle with on a daily basis.
On the Issues (www.ontheissues.org/default.htm) gives you a list of each candidate’s position on a variety of issues, including their voting record. It also allows you to take a 20-question quiz that matches you with the candidates, though I found this a little problematic–it doesn’t prioritize issues, so the candidate it gives you may agree with you in theory on many issues, but not the one that means the most to you.
If you ignore politics completely, though, then politics ignores you. Older people vote. Young people don’t. Yes, that’s a massive oversimplification, but why do you think attempts to privatize Medicare failed, while student loans are rarely even discussed? What if we could change that?
So as this is just an introduction, we’re going to ask you for your input. What do you want to know about the campaigns? What do you think is wrong with mainstream media’s political coverage? What can we do for you? What will make it easier for you to be an involved citizen, not just a consumer?
Kaffeine Buzz thinks the media is there to serve the people, not the advertisers. We don’t get big money from anyone. We do this because we care about it, not because we get paid (we don’t). We’re working for you.
We’re just a small webzine, so we probably can’t bring you firsthand interviews with the presidential candidates. What we can bring you are interviews with people like yourselves, normal people who have decided that one candidate is worth giving up their free time to volunteer. People who aren’t so burned out on the political process that they tune out. People who care.
So if there’s a question that you want answered about the presidential campaign or your local campaigns, ask away. If there’s an issue that is important to you, tell us and we’ll try to find out where the candidates stand on it—and what they’ve actually done about it in their careers. If you have suggestions for something we should do, or if you are a campaign worker or volunteer who wants to talk to us, please, let us know.
This is an experiment in public journalism. We’re not going to rant about what we like and dislike. We’re going to try and get to the truth. That doesn’t mean that we at KB don’t have our own opinions and our own issues that we care about, but we’re going to try to get beyond opinion and get at some facts, and maybe get all of you motivated again.
And if anyone from Iowa that plans to caucus is reading this, please contact us! We’d love to hear about the caucuses from the inside.
Reader mail can go to sarah.jaffe-at-gmail.com. Please include “Political Buzz” in the subject line or it may go to junk mail!
