MTV and Cox Communications are bringing voting awareness closer to home this year by teaming up for the “Choose or Lose 2004” campaign.
The campaign involves picking news correspondents between the ages of 15 and 25 to appear on MTV and provide news about the current events of this year’s presidential elections. Correspondents will be chosen from 16 different regions, including Cleveland, Orange County, New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
MTV will pick a young correspondent from each region and have them appear on MTV as news broadcasters.
In order to be considered as finalists, people are encouraged to print out the audition information from cox.com/BatonRouge or go to one of the Cox buildings, said Rusty Jabour, manager of public relations with Cox Communications in Baton Rouge.
Once finalists from each region have been chosen, they will travel to New York City, where they will train as news correspondents with MTV writers and producers, said an MTV spokesperson.
“The correspondents will serve as MTV news correspondents for the election, attending various political events,” said the spokesperson. “Their reports may appear on MTV and MTV.com, as well as their local Cox stations.”
MTV first launched “Choose or Lose” in 1992. Jabour said the program’s mission has been to improve awareness amongst young people about the importance of voting.
“Voting is one of the most important things we can do as citizens in our country,” said Jabour. “It’s on everybody’s minds because of the presidential elections, and especially here since we just finished our own governor elections.”
Many people think young adults today are not interested in voting or elections; however, according to an MTV press release, nearly 18 million people 18 to 30 years old voted in the 2000 elections. This group made up almost 16 percent of total voters.
Jabour said Cox was happy to work with MTV, and their relationship with MTV as a cable company led to this cooperation.
Starting March 8, participants were asked to create a video answering a series of audition questions, as well as reading from a news broadcast script.
The deadline for submission of tapes is March 20.
“From these tapes, Cox officials will select up to 10 finalists in the Baton Rouge area and the final one will be chosen by MTV,” Jabour said.
Jabour said MTV and Cox will evaluate the videos using the following criteria: articulation, presence on camera, creativity and interpretation of the script.
“It’s quite a bit of work for what is expected of the correspondent, but a tremendous opportunity for young people,” Jabour said. “It may even open a door for the correspondent they didn’t know about.”