Children's PressLine Uses iPods To Score Political Interviews

by , 4:30 PM EDT, August 30th, 2004

While its impact on culture is well known and oft touted, Apple's iPod is having an effect even on politics, according to a children's journalist group called the Children's PressLine (CPL). With its roots in another organization called Children's Express, the CPL has covered every Democratic and Republican national conventions since 1976. When two CPL reporters found themselves confined to the back of the crowd (with the rest of the press) by the Secret Service this week in an RNC event attended by vice president Dick Cheney, two of CPL's reporters turned to their iPods to score some interviews at the front of the hall. From a press release from the CPL:

Children's PressLine reporter Marie Ponsot, 11, and her editor, Kibuchi Banfield, 17, were denied close access to an event attended by Vice President Cheney, Governor Pataki, and former Mayor Giuliani. Having been spotted by secret service, they were told that all press needed to be in the back, way back, from the event.

The fast-thinking team quickly ditched their video crew, changed out of their bright gold-colored CPL-logo shirts and snuck back to the front using an iPod and tiny microphone, and scored interviews with the several of the dignitaries.

Getting those recorded interviews is important to CPL's reporters because the group emphasizes oral interviews. By relying on the spoken word rather than the written word," says the group's About Web page, "this methodology facilitates the participation of children of all ages and literacy levels." Using their iPods, these two young people were able to continue with their tradition, even in the midst of today's heightened security restrictions.

For more information on the CPL, including kids' perceptions of the political process, visit the group's Web site. The CPL has been covering the Democratic and Republican campaigns from the beginning of the current political season.

The Mac Observer Spin:

First of all, we like seeing young people using ingenuity and the tools on hand to accomplish what they think is important. Secondly, we find it very interesting that their iPods were able to make it past security in this incident. Lastly, we applaud the CPL's tradition of oral interview-based reporting, and it's very cool that a modern piece of technology like the iPod can play a roll in that tradition.

Children's PressLine