ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 7, 1996 TAG: 9602070072
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Four years ago, Tabitha Soren was part of what some saw as a novelty act.
This year, as she leads MTV News into coverage of its second presidential race, she is part of the media mainstream.
Although some might disagree.
Welcomed by Soren aboard MTV's funky ``Choose or Lose'' bus recently, Sen. Bob Dole clearly sensed this wasn't exactly NBC's ``Meet the Press'' he had gotten himself into.
The 72-year-old majority leader came across as a moralizing fussbudget in the company of Soren, herself a ripe old 28. As the New Hampshire scenery sped by, Dole looked less like someone who thought he was being interviewed than kidnapped. But that's the point. He wasn't. By his own free will, the presidential hopeful chose to take that ride.
Of course, Dole and all politicians remember the lesson of President Bush, who, last time around, noted that he was no longer a ``teeny-bopper'' and hence had no business on MTV. He changed his mind only days before the election he would lose to MTV veteran Bill Clinton.
This year, by contrast, candidates and the 16-to-30-year-old audience alike consider MTV part of the process.
``Politicians, because they notice us getting noticed, are now making an effort to appeal to this voter block,'' said Soren, in her office in the Times Square headquarters of corporate parent Viacom.
``What I'm looking for in terms of the election this time is that we don't have to explain why we're there,'' she said. ``That'll allow me to redirect a lot of my energy into reporting.''
As Soren continues, she is by turns prideful and self-effacing. ``Hopefully, the coverage will be even better than last time,'' she said, then laughed - ``and I'll know a little bit about what I'm talking about this time.''
Viewers will get another look at the campaign, MTV News-style, on the current edition of the network's ``The Week in Rock'' news wrapup. ``The Week in Rock'' premiered Feb. 2 at 7:30 p.m. and will have a number of repeats. Soren co-hosts with Kurt Loder.
Soren came to MTV News five years ago from a television station in Vermont, where she anchored the 11 o'clock news and served as statehouse correspondent and her own film crew.
She had grown up a military brat who moved frequently, developed an interest in foreign affairs early on and, perhaps surprisingly, didn't watch much TV.
While Soren's fingernails may sometimes turn up painted purple, she stops short of the hipper-than-thou look sported by many of her network's fellow on-air personalities. At the same time, she stands in sharp contrast to the glamour grotesques at other network news shops (for her polar opposite, think: Maria Shriver).
``I think I act differently than a lot of reporters,'' Soren said. ``When I interview someone, it's more casual and there's not a lot of posturing. I ask different questions, they are caught off guard, and they seem more human because they have to think of an answer on the spot.'' While Soren vows to stay in ``hard news,'' maybe the time will come when that won't include questions posed to presidents about the Grateful Dead.
``I'm 28 now,'' said Soren, already her profession's aging enfante terrible. ``When I'm 38, I'm hoping that the audience that was introduced to me in '92 is going to be just as interested in what I have to say, or the information I have to impart, after they've known my reporting for 10 years.''
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: In 1992, many saw political correspondent Tabitha Sorenby CNBas just another MTV novelty act. Now she has GOP candidate hopeful
Bob Dole talking.