DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

Four University of South Carolina students will be among a group of student journalists covering the Democratic National Convention through text messages and photos sent with cellular phones.

Their reporting will be published on a mobile Weblog, or “moblog,” sponsored by Cingular Wireless. The student journalists will send their stories and photos to the Newsplex at the University of South Carolina to be edited and posted on the Weblog.

“We’ll cover everything from what people are eating to protests,” said Allyson Bird, a USC student from Folly Beach. “To give a well-rounded picture of what’s going on, we have to be all over.

“We’ll be a part of journalistic history in a way.”

This is the first year the political conventions have issued press credentials to bloggers. Blogging is a relatively new phenomenon in which almost anyone can start up a Web site with an ongoing diary of everything from their personal travels to national news.

Other USC students covering the convention are Adam Beam, a senior from Fountain Inn and current editor of USC’s newspaper; Kent Babb, a print journalism senior from Spartanburg; and Mary Pinckney Waters, a third-year print journalism student from Aiken. Students from Emerson College and Northeastern University also are participating.