Politico Guinea Pigs
My last class in grad school is political communication, which seems fitting. The professor is a communication director on the Hill with a wealth of experience in Texas politics. He may be a liberal Democrat, but liberals from Texas are generally fun.
Throughout the class, we’ve had numerous professionals come to class–a pollster, micotargeter, VP at an agency, new media strategist, an a couple of communications people from advocacy groups. Last night Amy Walker from the Hotline and Mike Allen from Politico visited. They were by far the best speakers that we’ve had.
Walker and Allen led a Q&A, which at the graduate level is far more interesting than a lecture. Allen stayed for the entire class. After two hours, the discussion veered towards our media viewing habits. He started asking about what blogs we read, if we watch TV other than Stewart and Colbert, and how much time we spend reading the news all day.
Then he pulled out his BlackBerry and started taking notes.
Suddenly, it started feeling like an informal focus group of twentysomethings and their political and media habits.
The interesting thing was that our habits weren’t that different from national averages. While we all read different blogs that vary with out individual interests, Drudge, the WaPo and other popular publications topped the list.
If you read Politico and ever come across a reference to an unidentified group of graduate students from American University, I’m the outspoken conservative.
