Rocketboom Founder Plans to Play Big Part in 2008 Elections
Aug 25th, 2006 | By James Lewin | Category: General, Video Podcastst’s looking more and more like video podcasts will play an important role in the 2008 US presidential elections. One example of this trend is Rocketboom’s Andrew Baron. Baron, a life-long democrat, says that he hopes “to play a big part in this election.”In a post at his blog, dembot, Baron explains his anticipated plan:
“Last term, when George Bush announced he would run again, however, I knew enough was enough and I dropped everything and decided to devote my entire life to help prevent his re-election. Sigh.”
“This time I’m not going to be doing ANY fighting. I am just going to help with enabling the technology and social structures that we all need to see what’s really going on; the politicians need to be able to take the media into their own hands so we can discover their ideals and come to know more about who they really are, off-guard and on.”
Baron is upbeat about the role of citizen media in the upcoming election. “Not only will we get to read it from the horses mouth, and hear it, in many cases we are going to be able to click to see the whole thing,” he notes “That is major empowerment for everyone. The democratization of media will play a big part in democratizing politics.”
“When I met John Edwards for the first time over helping to set up his videoblog (what seems like a long time ago as he was the first major politician to embrace the medium), I remember this glorious moment where we placed the camera in his hands, had him turn the camera back on himself and then said ok now go for it!”
“He told me that during the last election, the only time politicians were able to really take hold of the media was during the debates because that was the only time they would get two solid minutes to state their ideas clearly, uninterrupted.”
“I was shocked – SHOCKED! – two minutes is absurd; how can you justify such large ideas in two minutes? This explains why they dont answer the questions during the debate but instead use the airtime to say what they need to.”
Baron’s full post is available at the Dembot.com site.
