Something rather remarkable happened at the Republican State Convention on Saturday. I’m not referring to a great speech or the voting results. What was most remarkable was Ric Cantrell and his merry band of bloggers “live-blogging” the convention – and what it means for the future of news coverage.
I was a delegate at the convention, but left before final voting results were announced. So when I got home, I checked the usual news media web sites to see if any convention stories had been posted with voting results. Nothing there. Then I checked the GOP blog site Leadership That Delivers and found almost minute-by-minute updates on the convention, including voting results as soon as they were announced. Check it out.
Cantrell and his group of volunteers over a 10-hour period posted dozens of updates, with photos, recorded more than 100 short videos and podcasts and posted them on the site, and even allowed people on the move to receive text message updates on their cell phones.
So here you had a group of amateurs, with inexpensive equipment, getting text, audio and video (in effect their own on-line newspaper, radio and TV station) out to the masses before any of the traditional high-powered media. Pretty remarkable. We’ll see more and more of this kind of coverage in the future, and I predict even the tradition media will start to cover big events this way.
There you have it.
It’s already happening, LaVarr- KVNU is “traditional” media and KVNU’s For the People was among the half dozen or so blogs liveblogging at the convention.
Just another gentle reminder to everyone that there are now just two kinds of people in the political world: those that understand that Government 2.0 is where 21st Century Democracy is taking place and those that don’t have a clue and are being marginalized without even knowing it.
Which one are you?
-Tom
Tom,
Are you officially one of the ‘merry band of bloggers’? If not, then my additional thanks to you for your coverage. How else are we going to get up to the minute coverage and activism for reasonably priced lunches at volunteer events?
And as great as Ric’s site is, I bet it isn’t the #1 (or sometimes #2) blog in the state.
I checked in to FTP a half dozen times this weekend to read your updates. You did a great job. Maybe next year I’ll have to do a live blog from the democratic convention, if I can figure out what’s going on!
In LaVarr’s defense, blogging is much bigger than it was even two years ago, and he does seem to know which way the winds are blowing. Unlike your local elected officials in Logan, who don’t seem to know their asses from a hole in the ground.
Jessica, there will be stuff coming up if you’re interested in getting involved, and Tom, I have to admit I was watching my RSS reader for your updates as well. The close call for Canon had me all a twitter.