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Cingular Wireless Sponsors Student Journalists to Provide a Real-Time Youth Perspective on the 2004 Presidential Campaign Digital Reporters Use Latest in Wireless Technology to Cover Democratic and Republican National Political Conventions as Part of Cingular's Wireless Election Connection ATLANTA, July 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The traditional campaign press corps will face some youthful, wireless competition in covering this year's Democratic and Republican National Conventions. A team of graduate and undergraduate college journalism students will serve as "digital reporters" utilizing the latest in wireless technology to provide a unique, real-time youth perspective on the conventions and campaigns. Cingular Wireless is sponsoring the students as a part of the Wireless Election Connection, a program encouraging young people to vote and play an important role in the political process. "Cingular is undertaking several election initiatives designed to increase voter participation and give youth a voice in the political process," said Marc Lefar, Chief Marketing Officer of Cingular Wireless. "Through the Wireless Election Connection, we are providing college journalism students with the opportunity to report and file national election news in a new and creative way using the technology they interact with everyday -- wireless phones and the Internet. We want to help reach young Americans and get them involved in the political process." The teams of "digital reporters," directed by professional journalists, are comprised of students from the University of South Carolina, University of California - Berkeley, Emerson College, Northeastern University and Columbia University. Armed with a Cingular camera phone and Cingular Wireless service, the teams of digital reporters will capture election news, events and activities surrounding the conventions and post pictures, audio and video to the mobile weblog (moblog) hosted at Cingular's Election Headquarters at http://www.rucingular.com/election . The site powered by Textamerica, the world's leading moblog platform provider, will go live on Monday, July 26 -- day one of the Democratic National Convention. The Wireless Election Connection moblog will combine the scope of print journalism with the immediacy of electronic journalism and illustrate the possibilities and the future of news. And, unlike many blogs, this moblog will adhere to the highest traditional journalistic standards providing objective coverage of the political events. Editing of the images and reports will be done at Newsplex, a next-generation newsroom and training center based at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Designed as a model for the news industry, the Newsplex project is a prototype multiple-media, micro-newsroom for demonstration, research and training in next-generation news handling tools and techniques. Cingular Wireless' all-digital GSM/GPRS network in South Carolina provides the backbone for its voice and advanced wireless data services. "A lot has been said about the candidates' use of technology to drive their campaigns. In the same fashion, the Wireless Election Connection will use the latest technology to assemble a mosaic of the day's events that will go beyond the limits of traditional journalism," said Randy Covington, Director, Ifra Newsplex. The momentum of Cingular's Wireless Election Connection will continue in the fall with students from additional universities from across the country reporting on election campaign news in their areas. The Wireless Election Connection will conclude with the 2004 Presidential Election on November 2. The Wireless Election Connection rounds out Cingular's 2004 election- related initiatives, which includes partnerships with MTV's "Choose or Lose 2004," Motorola's Rock the Vote and Comedy Central. For complete information about Cingular's election outreach and timely news from the national political conventions, check out http://www.rucingular.com/election . ABOUT CINGULAR WIRELESS Cingular Wireless, a joint venture between SBC Communications (NYSE:SBC) and BellSouth (NYSE:BLS), serves more than 25 million voice and data customers across the United States. A leader in mobile voice and data communications, Cingular is the only U.S. wireless carrier to offer Rollover(SM), the wireless plan that lets customers keep their unused monthly minutes. Cingular is the largest provider of GSM services in the United States, and has a 100 percent digital GSM/GPRS footprint across its service area. It also launched the world's first commercial deployment of wireless services using Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) technology. Cingular also provides corporate e-mail and other advanced data services through its GPRS, EDGE and Mobitex packet data networks. Details of the company are available at http://www.cingular.com/ . Get Cingular Wireless press releases e-mailed to you automatically. Sign up at http://www.cingular.com/newsroom . ABOUT IFRA Ifra, the world's leading association for media technology, is a service organization dedicated to the publishing industry worldwide. Ifra members comprise more than 2,000 publishing companies and publishing technology suppliers in 70 countries. Ifra is based in Darmstadt (near Frankfurt), Germany. For maximum member support, Ifra has 15 regional subsidiaries including offices in Canada, India, Paris, Stockholm, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The work of Ifra is monitored by a board of publishers from around the world. The current president is Murdoch MacLennan, group managing director of Associated Newspapers in London. ABOUT NEWSPLEX The Newsplex is a prototype multiple-media micro-newsroom for demonstration, research and training in next-generation newshandling tools and techniques. It is designed as a model for the industry. It was created to exercise the future of news, to show the possibilities. The Newsplex was developed by the Ifra Centre for Advanced News Operations, and located at and operated in cooperation with the University of South Carolina College of Mass Communications and Information Studies in Columbia, SC. DATASOURCE: Cingular Wireless CONTACT: Kelleigh Scott of Cingular Wireless, +1-404-236-6321, or ; or Shannon McCloskey Able of GCI Group for Cingular Wireless, +1-404-870-3770, or Web site: http://www.cingular.com/ http://www.cingular.com/newsroom http://www.rucingular.com/election

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