My 2009 New Media Revolution

It was just like most Sunday nights: I was procrastinating, reading about politics online. That night, I was checking out rising star Marco Rubio, who is challenging Gov. Charlie Crist for the Republican Florida Senate nomination Senate: his story, his policy proposals, and his advertisements. An ad criticizing Crist’s response to the economic crisis came on. I instantly realized that I had seen that ad somewhere. But where? And then it dawned upon me. I went straight to write about it on my blog, my Facebook, and course, my Twitter.

I am 16 years old, part of the first generation to be brought up with the Internet. In my case, it’s fed my politics addiction. This has been the decade that I grew up in, meaning I was raised on texting, news cycles, and social networking. In my case, the new media fed my politics addiction. At 13, I spent weekends reading the Wikipedia profiles of every single congressman and senator I could find, closely following the bills they were pushing and the campaigns they were running. One of the Wikipedia profiles I stumbled upon was that of Barack Obama’s. I was quickly drawn to him. It’s true that his charisma was a big part of it. But the Internet helped me take the next step, which was to immerse myself in the details of policy and government on various Web sites, like those of Ezra Klein, Ben Smith and Matt Yglesias. I realized I had found my calling. By 14, out of excitement and slight obsession, I started my blog, www.carmonreport.com, where I and writers I recruited post about politics, general interest, and society. I loved it. At the same time, I was using the Internet to phone-bank from my room for the Obama campaign, and convincing other people to phone-bank along with me. I could do so much, just from my bedroom.

There were never that many readers (usually 10-20 per day), but I persisted because it wasn’t for them—it was for me. Until that night, when I noticed that Marco Rubio’s Senate campaign had plagiarized an ad directly from the Obama campaign. I realized it from the very beginning of the video—the music, the pace, and the theme—all of it was the same. The similarities between the two ads were more than a coincidence. I even played the clips simultaneously to find that they actually, identical. I could not believe no one had caught it. Here it was, in the open on YouTube, and no one noticed!

I knew about all the trouble politicians like Joe Biden and others had gotten into for plagiarism, so I felt that it was very important to get the word out. And Rubio, whose entire campaign is based on the belief that Charlie Crist is too similar to Barack Obama, was himself copying Obama’s advertisements! Two hours later, I had put it everywhere I could. I wrote a post titled with all-caps letters. I tweeted it, and begged my siblings to retweet me. I emailed it to every single blogger I could think of along with several Florida political blogs. I left a message for the AP in Tallahassee and tried to send it to every news source I could think of.

The next morning at 9AM, I looked at my phone. My emails had exploded. My heart started thumping. Several blogs had posted my revelation, and thanked me for the great scoop. David Weigel (one of my favorite Tweeters) of the Washington Independent had picked up my story, and even used my name! That alone was thrilling. I escaped from the cafeteria to the computer lab, and saw that other news sources had picked it up, including Ben Smith. I was flabbergasted. The king of bloggers had posted my story and even put his own spin on it. This had to be one of the best days of my life.

But it got better. At 5:45 PM, and I got a call. “Hi, this is Brendan Farrington from the Associated Press.” They had already covered my story in Florida, and were telling me that they would run it nationally. I couldn’t pronounce a proper “thank you.” My homework could wait. I ran downstairs with my laptop, and googled “Marco Rubio News” and I gasped immediately. It was everywhere. Local news stations in South Dakota, and the Los Angeles Times. Yahoo! News and The Guardian in the UK had all picked up the AP story, which had directly mentioned and linked my website. Fellow politics junkies were joking about it on Twitter.

My blog post also led to more sniping between the Rubio and Crist campaigns. The Rubio campaign claimed that the ad was merely an ”homage” to Obama’s. The Crist campaign ripped Rubio, saying he was like Obama because they were both “media darlings of the moment dedicated to fooling voters.”

I’m 16 years old, and I created an international news story from my room. As we now reflect on the decade that was, it’s hard to remember that even ten years ago, I would have had a hard time getting people’s attention at the local barbershop, let alone getting on the Washington Post. This decade’s media revolution has given my generation the opportunity to create the news, to make the news, and to be the news. This decade gave birth to the age of information, making all of us contributors to the story. Whether it’s blogging from your room or tweeting the revolution overseas, what you do and say matters more than ever in 2010. So, what about the next ten years?

Jordan Carmon is a 16 year old junior at the Waldorf School of Garden City, where he is Student Body President. He is the editor-in-chief of CarmonReport.com and recently worked on Councilman Eric Gioia’s run for NYC Public Advocate. The full web history of the Rubio story can be found here, and Jordan can be found on Twitter at @J_Carmon.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.