Politics create gray area for student journalists

It's on TV most mornings, afternoons and nights and almost always in the mail. It's there on the walk to class, scrawled in sidewalk chalk on the pavement or read from the clipboards and handouts of solicitors. The media is saturated with it - most conversations full of it, especially in Ohio this time of year.

It's politics, for those who haven't guessed, and it's invading Columbus.

As students, our once written-off presence in politics continues to increase in this battleground state.

And for journalists these times are not just exciting and all consuming but historically unprecedented.

But some of us on campus straddle these two groups. As the line between politics and pop-culture blurs more with each election year, journalists on college campuses face an interesting dilemma: Are we to be students first and journalists second or vice versa? When does our duty to be active in the college community interfere with our role as objective outsiders, and more importantly what do we do about it?

The question gets easier with certain scenarios. When I am in the newsroom or out reporting for the newspaper, my role as journalist trumps my role as student. That's a given. But when my fiancé slaps a sticker on my chest and asks me to tag along to a political rally that I'm not covering for the paper, what do I do?

Although it's sometimes not reflected in these pages, as journalism students we do strive to remain objective and impartial when reporting the news. However, that shouldn't mean that we have to abandon all personal affiliations and activities in the interest of fairness. We're taught a certain level of professionalism here, and being able to check bias at the door is paramount. To that end, it's up to the individual to make sure it happens. That we are conscious of this dilemma is probably the best sign there is hope for a responsible student press.

Despite this, there's something appealing in staying politically androgynous. As my friends toe their party lines and bicker back and forth on the qualities of Candidate X while berating Candidate Z, I stay in the periphery and do what I do best: watch and take notes. Ask me who I'm voting for and you'll most likely get a shrug - not because I don't know, but because it's more fun not to have to choose. I like to think of journalists as the archetype Independents, and frankly I won't endorse a candidate until that first Tuesday in March.

In Ohio, and Columbus especially, there's no denying the importance of the youth vote: 54 percent of 18-29 year-olds went to the polls during the 2004 general election here, compared with only 40 percent in 2000. Most analysts say that number will rise in 2008, and all of the recent Pew Research Center polling reflects that.

Campaigning on campus has revolutionized the way candidates interact with their constituents. All the major Republican and Democratic contenders, for instance, use Facebook and MySpace to corral millions of young voters online.

Now more than ever, citizens are involved and interested in the policies that directly affect them. And now, more than ever, young people are recognizing their importance.

That, my friends, makes it a good time to be a journalist and a great time to be a student.

John Cropper can be reached at cropper.21@osu.edu.