PERSPECTIVE ON THE NEXT GENERATION : Inspiration Requires New Channels : True, young adults aren’t into electoral politics. Yet they’re into issues such as the environment, civil rights and abortion.

I may not be one of the “boys on the bus,” but as a 24-year-old reporter from MTV News, I have been covering the 1992 presidential campaign since the frosty New Hampshire primary in February. I represent an age group that has been accused of being apathetic, but the truth is that my generation is not uninterested or unintelligent about politics. Just uninspired.

In the last presidential election, less than 35% of the 25 million 18-to-24-year-olds voted. Last week, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton spent an hour and a half talking to me and almost 200 other young people about the future. During a discussion of voter apathy, Clinton related how he was inspired to go into politics when he shook the hand of President John F. Kennedy at the White House.

His story reinforced what I’ve found as I’ve talked to young people over the past few months: While our parents grew up in a time when people believed wholeheartedly in their elected representatives and trusted their government to take care of them, my age group was brought up very differently.

What we know of programs like the New Deal and the Great Society and men like Roosevelt and Kennedy, we learned in our history classes. Our firsthand experiences made many of us cynical from the start.

My first memory of a President was Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal. My mom never let my dad live down the fact that he voted for “Tricky Dick.” (I recently forced my father to register again to vote, after finding out he hadn’t voted since the 1972 election.) Then came Gerald Ford, to me just a bumbling Saturday Night Live character who golfed a lot. Jimmy Carter was seen as a weak President who was bullied by a fanatic Islamic leader. Ronald Reagan enjoyed support from many young people but his distrust of big government and scandals within his Administration reinforced young voters’ already well-developed cynicism.

Another factor that has distanced young voters from the White House is age. Kennedy connected with youth, in part because he was relatively young himself and spoke directly to people our age. Candidates since Kennedy have rarely taken the time to speak to us about issues we care about, and we don’t always listen to them through conventional channels.

But just because young adults don’t connect the issues they care about with the ballot box doesn’t mean they’re not politically active. Activism is springing up on college campuses over issues like the environment, civil rights and abortion. According to a national survey of college freshmen, while participation in political campaigns has fallen during the last two decades, today’s 18- to 24-year-olds are twice as likely to have participated in organized demonstrations as baby boomers.

Young people today tend to be active about issues that directly affect their lives, and those that they can do something about in a hands-on way, like recycling to save the environment.

The questions remains: What can be done to channel this political interest into voting and caring about the electoral process?

More and more of us are getting our news and information from non-traditional sources--the “new news.” As network viewership disperses and the “big three” cut back their convention and political coverage, the presidential candidates can be seen everywhere from MTV to Arsenio Hall to Phil Donahue and Oprah. Movies like “JFK” are forcing officials to reopen the files and groups like Public Enemy are discussing the issue of race more directly than on the evening news.

Clinton took us up on our invitation to talk directly to young voters. I can’t imagine that President Bush and Ross Perot wouldn’t do the same. We reach our audience in a way that interests them--with graphics, music and quick cuts. Our news packages are about four minutes each (luxurious by network standards).

Participation is what we’re after. And as Bill Clinton pointed our in our presidential forum: The youngest generation has more to lose than anyone else. We are going to be around the longest.