 Hello! My name is Catty Januzzi and I'm here again this week to interview another UVM student. Her name is Grace Parker and she just joined now and again we're not expecting too many viewers on the live itself but it's more for keeping the live on the Instagram page to continue to raise awareness, raise awareness for CCTV time-meeting TV and the importance of it. So I'm going to, I always struggle doing this, okay. Nice to meet you! You as well. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah of course. You know we're gonna talk about some really cool stuff. I think you've done some awesome stuff so. All right so do you want to just start off by introducing yourself? Yeah so like you said my name is Grace. I am from Jackson, Wyoming. I am a senior here at UVM majoring in political science. I'm on the pre-log and I've done some research at a law firm in Burlington and some other things like that. Yeah awesome. What law firm did you do research? Pain Law. It's actually based out of UVM interns. That's really it. Yeah I was going to ask about what your major was because you know the girl that I interviewed last week she was I believe she was a studio art major or something and that really interested me because I was you know I was assuming that you know the people who get really involved with like local politics and you know town policy and everything like I would assume that they would be more you know politically inclined in their major you know but it was interesting to know that you know it's just something that you can be passionate about without having it be like you know something you're studying so. Yeah totally. Yeah all right so tell me about your political experiences you know and your their experiences of how you've gotten involved in the town of Burlington. Yeah I guess that would really start my for my second year on campus is when I got more involved with volunteering on various campaigns and stuff. I've always been kind of politically active growing up at home and in my hometown and then I got involved with college Democrats my sophomore year through friends and then was asked to volunteer on Richard Dean's city council campaign that year and then with that same group of people volunteered on a couple other state senate campaigns and then Burlington city council campaigns as well. So how many total campaigns do you think you've been a part of? I would say maybe five or six campaigns. Nice it's awesome can you tell me about what you do when you're involved like how how you specifically got involved in them. Yeah a lot of the work I've done when we were in person was doing like canvassing in the Burlington area phone banking and then now when we did our most recent campaign I was involved in it was always fully remote because of the pandemic obviously so that was doing a lot of like phone banking honking waves just really trying to connect with um voters and get them like engaged and excited and also informed that you know there were elections coming up and things that they should be involved in. So that's really really interesting so how do you get the reliable information about what's happening with local issues is it harder or easier to get this than it is national political issues or? I definitely oh sorry I definitely think that we a lot of what is easily accessible is going to be the big national issues when it comes to politics because that gets a lot more coverage so for folks that aren't really looking into specific local issues and they just go to the news or whatever it is that they get their information from they're going to find the larger stuff something that I do to stay um engaged with like local stuff following like hashtag BT poly on twitter or hashtag BTB poly just to like see what issues people are actively talking about but then also looking at the different newspapers in Burlington and kind of knowing who writes about the different issues to stay up to what is being talked about and decided in the area. So what are some issues that you specifically care about as a Burlington local? I think right now some of the big issues that I've seen in the last couple of years that I am pretty passionate about is I have followed some stuff through the state house about bupenefruin oh my gosh sorry legalization and also getting like safe needle zones in the area and just like helping with that because we've seen how hard Vermont has been hit by the opioid epidemic. I think there's been a lot of really interesting dialogue in local politics regarding race and race relations in Burlington and that's something I've been following and just trying to stay up on but also I think a big thing in Burlington politics is like people feeling excluded or like the ability to like engage and become a part of it so that's something I've also been kind of following. Yeah that's a lot of stuff. I actually I know how hard obviously Burlington has been hit with the opioid epidemic and you know knowing that people are interested in doing something about that is you know for some reason I don't hear too much about activism surrounding that you know these days so knowing that there is stuff going on you know to support that is obviously really reassuring I'm good to know so when it comes to the coverage of political issues via news outlets what's more important in your opinion factually reliable coverage or coverage that resonates with one's individual ideologies so should it be super accurate or should it be kind of more tending to what they think the audience wants to hear? I mean yeah I think it should be like as factually accurate as possible and I think that's hard because every news source is going to have or every writer is going to have some bias when they're covering something and it's also hard because people are going to search out coverage of an issue that they agree with like we're always going to kind of find something that confirms your own implicit bias but I think it's more important to have accurate stuff and stuff that aligns with your own ideology. Right I think it's interesting to think about how you know naturally you're going to you know resonate more with and you know seek out more news sources that align with your political you know personal ideologies you know for example the difference between like Fox News and CNN like you know if you're more conservative and you're looking for news that resonates more along the conservative lines like you're probably going to go to Fox News instead of CNN and vice versa you know right so there's like an interesting line there I think of you know searching for something that resonates with you while maintaining the accuracy. Yeah exactly like our confirmation bias is so deeply ingrained that you don't necessarily realize that you're doing it. I took a course through the political science department looking at the political effects of entertainment media and it's kind of along the same things with news media and entertainment media we're going to continue to find things and tend to like things that are going to confirm that. Yeah so there's yeah really interesting stuff. It's really yeah the science behind it. Yeah so my next question is what are some strategies that news outlets can use in order to reduce their own political biases. I mean I think it's just important to look at the facts as they're presented when researching or reporting on something so just you know even if you maybe disagree with what you're reporting on you know still giving it a fair look at that and also just I think being so aware of your own bias when reporting on something and like taking that into account is really important to make sure that maybe it's not so biased. Right yeah um so sorry I have my questions written out here. You're so fine. You and I are like you know coming together to write a bunch of questions and there's actually a lot more than actually the we sent you so I'm not trying to just like just jump at you with like all these different questions but um so what would be the local impact of politics if voter turnout was higher do you think? Um I mean I think you would if there's a lot of criticism I feel like that politicians get from the public just being um like feeling like they disagree with policies that happen and I think if voter turnout was higher you would see maybe less criticism you would see more I think you they still get criticized but I think people would maybe have a better understanding or feel like more trust within those that are elected because they're engaged in the process um and voter turnout I think obviously would change who gets elected um you know in many different ways yeah. Is there a specific demographic that you would you know like to see as someone who is politically involved politically active that you would like to see turn out more when it comes to voting? I mean I I think it's interesting in Burlington just you know having worked in like the student awards on campus and during our campaigns that I've been involved in that turnout fluctuates so much like in general but you know the student vote is obviously important to get into increase because they their voice still matters and I think that there's been a lot happening to engage students in the last couple years just overall I think there's a lot of people that um aren't engaged in the political process that could be you know it's just all all the demographics I think should just engage more but yeah it is really interesting that um you know when I was talking with Margo last week I don't know if you saw the interview that I had with her it was something like very similar to this um she was saying that you know people in the Burlington area like the students in the Burlington area like even if they're you know not necessarily like from Vermont they're still a part of the community and they're you know whatever they vote for or don't vote for affects them directly as well so yeah you know interesting that you know maybe students don't automatically think that they're you know going to be super impacted by the local politics and policies and everything that's going on in the town that they go to school in because it's not they're you know where they're born and raised and grown up or whatever but you know it's still obviously really important for the college demographic definitely right and it's hard the hardest thing I think with that is convincing students that does impact them because a lot of times I'll have conversations with friends or with potential voters and we'll be talking about it like but it doesn't impact me it's like no but it does explain that to them is always a interesting conversation um yeah especially when things like oh well I'm only here for like eight months I'm like well the other four months in here at home how does that have a bigger impact on you yeah it's true yeah it's true it's like as students we spent we're spending the majority of our time like here you know so we think that like I've lived here now for four years and it's like yeah it's become absolutely a part like whatever happens in the town affects me you know even if I don't realize it yeah absolutely yeah so um what are the disadvantages of the media like on the projects that you've been working on the campaigns that you've worked on um you know anything like I think it's hard because like any cover you know they say like any coverage is good coverage and like you want to get exposure on different things um in terms of like disadvantages of the media I mean sometimes it can be really hard because you know you know one side of an issue or a topic because you're involved in it and then the media only knows maybe a different side and that if that's what gets published or put out there that can be really frustrating because you don't want to be like well that's wrong you know yeah sometimes knowing when you're involved in politics and like knowing that more nuances or backstory to situations can be frustrating with the media at times but I don't know I just think it's important to maintain positive relationships with the media and just stay involved in that way yeah definitely so um I'm just thinking what what media sources have you know provided you or the campaigns that you've worked on with like you know some positive advantages you know throughout your campaigning process yeah I think um the various campaigns I've been involved in have had really good relationships with like vt digger and just like some of the local papers seven days and stuff and um you know reaching out on both sides um you know reaching out to them and them to the campaigns and just staying engaged and what yeah nice so um these are the questions that like you know you didn't get originally um so do you have any plans for a future like are you going to be staying in Burlington are you going to continue working getting involved in the community yeah um I am as of right now unsure exactly what I'll be doing after graduation so kind of figuring all of that out but long term I am studying for the LSAT with um in terms of going to law school so definitely still staying involved in some aspect of politics and you know I'll always I'll always be involved on some level because I thought it's important yeah yeah that's awesome have you heard of CCTV throughout your yeah sorry things are popping up yeah I have heard of um yeah yeah so from your opinion how do you think CCTV benefits the community town meeting tv like you know how do you think it benefits the community or the work that you're doing yeah I mean I think anything that makes access to local politics easier is a huge benefit and especially you know doing things like this and having um coverage that's accessible to students is really important um because it's you're not gonna have students that are always going to like go down and like watch city council meetings or log into um like uh broadcasts of it so having things that are more accessible is definitely important yeah that's what we're gonna try to be doing because on the on the youtube channel the CCTV youtube channel there they do lives kind of like how they would do on instagram like they do live or the meetings and so we were gonna try to take the content from the youtube like download it and post it onto the instagram that way people have you know like one resource yeah it will watch it because it's not you're not always going to be able to tune in and also a lot of college kids don't have like you know cable like that so right hard to you know be exposed to that at a certain point so that's what we're trying to do here is just make it more accessible and interesting for college kids definitely well i really appreciate you talking with me you have obviously so much going on and i know that you've done you know so much for the town of burlington we'll continue to do that you know well into your years after you graduate and good luck with everything that you're doing good luck with law school the else thank you yeah i really did it and it's cool with you if i save this live to the yeah of course okay right everyone give a give a great thank you to grace for being here so thank you so much for having me yeah thank you again for being here we really appreciate it