Crying Wolf, Creating a War Room

Rob Anderson, the editor of Campus Progress has an editorial in today's Washington Post responding to an earlier editorial by author and activist Naomi Wolf:

In Sunday's Washington Post Outlook section, Naomi Wolf argued that most young people today don't understand how democracy works and that even those who do are too cynical to get involved in our country's democratic process.

We'd all have something to worry about if Wolf's argument were true. America's youth today are coming of age at a time when one group of extremists has launched a violent attack on liberal values abroad, and as another seeks to roll back our civil liberties at home.

Fortunately, Wolf's depiction of my generation is supported only by anecdotal evidence, off-topic research and a faulty analysis of recent history. In reality, we young Americans are reshaping the political landscape with our activism and innovation. And we're working to increase our influence on the issues we care about most.

Two things. First, to Ms. Wolf: Fact Check; There Is No Crisis among American Youth, as Rob Anderson ably demonstrates in his piece.

Second, I just want to note that there has been a lot of really great push-back from progressive youth organizers against misleading and downright inaccurate narratives in the press about American youth participation in politics. Between the retorts to Adam Nagourney's reporting, corrections to a piece by CBS, smackdowns to 60 Minutes, reactions to Courtney Martin's piece in the American Prospect, rebuttals to Tom Freidmans' condescending and hypocritical "Generation Q," the creation of the Journalist "Cheat Sheet," and now this, it seems like progressive youth organizers are getting their sea legs when it comes to engaging in rapid response. The narrative is already much improved over what we saw around this time in 2003 or even 2005, and after the caucuses we'll have a big chance to reshape it even more. Until then, it's good to see such strong pushback. It's likely priming the pump for better coverage as we get deeper into the election cycle.