College Times

Issue date: 2/21/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Ryan Ruiz

Ryan O'Neal, 21, is changing the face of election coverage one article at a time with his contributions to the up-and-coming political website Scoop08.com, which was launched early last November.

As an alternative to normal televised election coverage, Scoop08 is geared toward a younger demographic and allows students all over the country to have a voice that can be exercised freely.

As a third-year economics major at Arizona State University, O'Neal decided to take his interest in politics to the web and is now a steady contributor for Scoop08.com.

College Times: What's the goal of the site?

Ryan O'Neal: It would be just to kind of create a little more dialogue amongst the younger people, and also just about anyone can contribute if they want to. We have like 300 people, I think, that are registered writers or contributors and such for the site, so the goal is just to create more dialogue and to give everyone a voice and to be a part of the new media revolution that the internet is providing and steering away from just the mainstream media.

Do you think that the internet does make it a lot easier for young people?

Yes, definitely. You can look at Ron Paul's popularity using his internet campaigns for evidence of how the internet can spread the word about something, even if the mainstream media ignores it like they do for him. You get to hear about different types of stories; you know there is a lot of stuff out there like Dig and Read It. Social news sites like that will help spread the word about different things that get ignored by the mainstream media as well.

Do you get feedback from a lot of the things you write? Is it interactive?

Yeah, we have the opportunity to write comments; it's been kind of slow just since it's only been up for a couple months. Word really hasn't gotten out as much as we would like it to at this point.

Do you want to go into politics or is it just something you are passionate about?

You know I've always paid attention a little bit to politics … I just enjoy writing, and I especially enjoy writing about things that I view as important. And this election definitely seems like an important issue, so I figured it would be a good way to get involved and for me to pay closer attention to everything that is going on.

Who do you want to see win the presidential election?

I personally liked Ron Paul, but I don't think he's even getting close to the Republican nomination. I'm a fan of Barack Obama to some degree as well.

Why do you like Barack Obama?

He has more sense of knowledge in the Constitution […] than just about any other candidate and he also seems to be more open to accepting other people's ideas and considering them and trying to unite people, as opposed to pointing fingers and blaming people for what's going wrong.

Is there anything else you'd like to add about the site?

I think overall it's an opportunity for people to get involved and it gives voices to people, actually internationally, we have high school and college students all over the country and there's some in Scotland and I believe there are a couple of other places internationally … You can get a perspective of how everyone else perceives the election not just from the CNN newsroom.

To contribute, visit www.Scoop08.com and click the submission box on the homepage.

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