We've made it to St. Petersburg, Florida for the YouTube CNN Debate. I'm sitting in the "press filing center" at a table with Patrick Ruffini, Robert Bluey, and Mary Katharine Ham.

It's kind of funny, but the "bloggers" are actually in a better position in the press filing center. In other words, it matters where you're sitting in the press filing center (or at least that is what one journalist tells me), and we're sitting in front of about 75 percent of the reporters in the third row of tables. I'm just saying...

Jumping over to "Vlogger Lounge" to grab a vitamin water (Power-C for the VW fans in the room), I made this video via YouTube's Live Capture:

Earlier today we had lunch with YouTube CEO Chad Hurley, who is much more down to earth than you'd think, and several YouTube users including:

* Melissa Compagnucci (aka "MelissaJenna")
Dennis Trainor (aka "Davis Fleetwood")
* Michael Weitz (aka "ConservativeVoiceUSA")
* Ray Keller (aka "plkellerap")

Robert Bluey is posting mad pics to his flickr account and has some of the lunch.

The question that I asked of the YouTube users was "Which candidate they thought had actually used YouTube effectively to communicate with the YouTube community?"

Surprisingly, the answer was none. However, they did make a few interesting points after they eased up a little bit:

* They all really liked Mike Huckabee's Chuck Norris video because they thought it was appropriate content for YouTube.
* They agreed that no candidate had really figured out the platform noting that the high-production value is questioned by the YouTube community as not being authentic. "Authentic" was an important word used throughout the discussion.
* Again, agreement among the crew that Ron Paul, and/or his community, was the one using YouTube the best.

MTV, like so many other media outlets trying to stay relevant in the modern political world, is seeking citizen journalists in all 50 states + Washington, DC (woot!) to help provide coverage for the Presidential debate.

I hope a few Republicans take a shot at being a part of this machine. We desperately need to win back the Gen Next vote.

The press release:

MTV's Choose or Lose is looking for aspiring journalists to cover the 2008 election via written stories, vlogs and photos.

Citizen journalists! Visionaries! Vloggers! This is your year. Now more than ever, the presidential candidates know that every vote counts, and that local campaign stops can be covered and spread worldwide by anyone with a cell phone. You have power.

As part of our collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Knight News Challenge, MTV is looking for one aspiring reporter from every state and Washington, D.C., to be part of our Choose or Lose team. We know that you're already hitting the streets and doing this work. So now we're giving you the chance to join a national team of journalists in covering this unprecedented election year from a youth perspective.

Ideal candidates will have their fingers on the pulse of issues that are important to young people in their states and be passionate about politics and the possibilities of new technology. Strong writing and reporting skills are a must. A distinctive voice and an authoritative point of view? Even better.

We'll load you up with some production gear and bring you to MTV's headquarters in New York City for orientation. In return, you will be expected to work in a paid, part-time capacity to file video, written or photographic stories weekly throughout the election year. Your pieces will be posted online and spread to mobile devices — and the top stories will be broadcast on MTV, MTV2, MTVU or MTV Trés each week.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes journalistic excellence worldwide and invests in the vitality of the communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers.

Requirements:

* You must be at least 18 years old by December, 2007.
* You must reside in the state you are covering from January to November, 2008.
* You must have the time and ability to travel within your state and file at least one video, written or photographic story per week.

Applications can be filled out and submitted at think.mtv.com The application deadline is September 21, 2007.

Jig's Old Saws asks:

Jay Rosen and Arianna Huffington have announced their new hires for their OffTheBus project: Amanda Michel and Zack Exley.

There's a brief conversation in PressThink's comments about "... how it looks to hire two liberal Democratic political operatives to run a journalism project?"

...

I'm skeptical that the partnering between PressThink and Huffington Post has anything to do with limiting their hires to two liberal political operatives. I think Jay conflates organizations with individuals. Jay makes no mention of reaching out to Patrick Ruffini, David All or Mike Turk.

Two things here. Yes, this was in my vanity search feed. And no, I don't want the job (though I suppose it's always nice to be asked).

This is the blogosphere, so there is no warranty of objectivity or balance. The Huffington Post can hire anyone they want, as far as I'm concerned. But by bringing in Rosen, one of the nation's preeminent media critics, they clearly wanted this to look like a respectable journalistic enterprise, and not a partisan left-wing one. That raises the bar for them a bit.

It's eerily similar to other recent nonpartisan efforts in the world of online politics that purport to be bipartisan, but by design or in practice work out to be less than that. Take the questions about Facebook's playing favorites with Obama. Or Lawrence Lessig's letter to the RNC about freeing the debates, which was heavily stacked with left-leaning signatories until Mike Turk and David All worked to round up more Republicans. (I'll cop to not being ready to sign when first approached, but eventually doing so.)

Are conservatives just perennially late to the party here? Or are the social circles in which the Rosens and Huffingtons run dictating personnel decisions about cool projects and thus perceptions of who is up and down online?