More on MTV's Native reporter

MTV's Native VoiceAfter spending eight hours helping Native American college students across the country get money for college, more work awaits her in her Albuquerque home.

"Some days I come home from work and go straight to editing," Begay said. "Sometimes I'm up till two or three in the morning."

It's Begay's job with MTV's Street Team '08 that keeps her up in the late hours of the night, but it's the cause that keeps her motivated.

MTV selected Begay to represent New Mexico for its Street Team '08, under the Emmy-winning "Choose or Lose" campaign, as a citizen journalist covering youth concerns, views and issues during the presidential campaign.

She is the only Native American to participate in the program that has covered every presidential election since 1992. Begay is Yankton Lakota, Arikara and Navajo.And:With her MTV equipment, Begay travels throughout New Mexico interviewing for articles and video reports. On one occasion just before the New Mexico caucus, MTV shipped Begay and other Street Team colleagues high-tech Nokia videophones to send live reports during the caucus.

Although Begay and the rest of the citizen journalists didn't get to keep the phones, she enjoyed using it for the time she did.

"There were other news media outlets there with their big cameras, and there I was holding up a phone," Begay said. "People were looking at me like, 'What is she doing?' "

All of Begay's work is posted on her profile on MTV's Think Web site.

"We were extremely impressed with Christine's work from the beginning," said Jason Rzepka, director of communications for MTV. Rzepka said Begay was exactly what MTV was looking for during the intense application process.