In 1992, when producer/reporter Alison Stewart of MTV News arrived in New Hampshire to cover the presidential primary, she found most of the candidates hesitant to be interviewed by the music-video network. "They all thought we were going to ask them about the last five records they bought," she recalls.

It was a little-known governor and saxophonist from Arkansas named Clinton who best understood MTV's potential, and he appeared on the cable network throughout the '92 campaign, later crediting it with helping energize young people about politics. George Bush, by contrast, initially declined to go on what he called "the teenybopper network" before finally agreeing to an interview with MTV correspondent Tabitha Soren in the campaign's last days.

Now, four years later, the candidates are much more eager. "They now know that the questions will be serious," Stewart says, "and they all realize how important our audience is." And this time around the candidates will be dealing with a more experienced operation.

MTV News's executive producer, Dave Sirulnick, says that in 1992 most work was done on the fly. "We started very small, doing one event at a time, seeing what the vibe was." This year, the coverage, which again is being wrapped under the "Choose or Lose" banner, has more resources and planning behind it. An election team that once consisted of just Stewart and Soren now has fifteen full-time staff people who worked on logistics for more than nine months.

In addition, the seventy-five-member MTV News department has had four more years of experience covering politics, including several interviews with President Clinton and last summer's televised roundtable with House Speaker Newt Gingrich and a group of young people, titled "Newt Raw."

The "Choose or Lose" reports vary in length from thirty seconds to four minutes, and are integrated into daily news updates, which focus predominantly on music and other cultural news.

 Throughout 1996, the network is also presenting periodic specials focusing on issues of concern to young people and holding the type of televised public forums with leading candidates that began with candidate Clinton in the summer of '92. Meanwhile, "Rock the Vote" public service announcements featuring music personalities like Aerosmith, Madonna, and R.E.M. are stressing the importance of voting. And MTV is publishing a forty-five-page "Voter's Guide," which is being distributed free.

Voter surveys conducted by MTV indicate that the economy, education, crime, race relations, and AIDS are the most important concerns of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds for the 1996 campaign. It is a young electorate with a more bottom-line interest in its own personal finances and careers than even four years ago.

 Contrary to popular belief, working at MTV does not slow the aging process. One inevitable difference from 1992 is that Sirulnick, thirty, Stewart, twenty-nine, and Soren, twenty-eight, have moved farther out of their viewer demographic. Nevertheless, Stewart says they all keep in touch with the interests and concerns of their audience, noting, half in jest, that when in doubt, she'll consult with one of the many college-age interns on the news staff.

cjr  |  archive  |  resources  |  contact  |  search  |  subscribe