Comments on: That’s our debate

By: Greg0658

Greg0658 — Thu, 24 May 2007 04:14:59 +0000

Thank you Jeff Crigler for the update.

By: Jeff Crigler

Jeff Crigler — Thu, 24 May 2007 01:50:00 +0000

Jeff,

Its actaully worse than you think. My company Voxant just spent 8 months getting our accreditation to cover the House and Senate TV galleries. We are thinking of doing the much the same as CQ. Not only is Congress not doing this, the process makes it exceedingly painful for anyone else to. First, accredited members are prohibited from allowing these clips to be used by lobbyists, PACs, campaigns, or in any way that shows member in anything other than a positive light. You have to be a “news organization” and make most of your money that way, and you have to be approved by the gallery “accreditation committee”, which may or may not eventually get around to it…

Then… you need to put in a lot of expensive equipment or join one of the two media pools. The system is designed to protect incumbents from having any of their sometimes inane remarks used against them. Why every committee hearing and debate isn’t webcast by shrouded by the tradition and politics of hidebound institutions.

If its any consolation, Speaker Pelosi seems to be taking a more active and open approach to all of this… so its not inconceivable that this may all change with the new control.

jeff

By: That Video Belongs To You And Me | Peach Pundit

That Video Belongs To You And Me | Peach Pundit — Wed, 23 May 2007 19:59:14 +0000

[...] post in full is here. Times like this, we need to remind ourselves that we are now The Media. Sphere [...]

By: SpaceyG

SpaceyG — Wed, 23 May 2007 19:23:14 +0000

This is complete bullshit. That “coverage” belongs to us. They (politicians) already jsut sit there in Washington on their fat asses waiting for the PAC checks to arrive so they can continue to NEVER respond to their constituents for another billion years, smirking behind their ludicrous firewalls of unaccountability and those armies of lobbyista.

The tiniest of crumbs they can throw our way are some g-damn frames of floor video.

Now I’m just plain hoppin’ mad….

By: Pete’s View

Pete’s View — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:22:46 +0000

[...] Jeff Jarvis, speaking about CQâ€™s reClipâ€™s thinks itâ€™s government dropping the ball. Public debate is their responsibility. [...]

By: Matt Welch

Matt Welch — Tue, 22 May 2007 23:10:26 +0000

What I’d like to see, just for starters, is an immediate repeal to the ban on recording devices and cameras in the Senate chamber. I was run out of there yesterday for breaking a half-dozen rules … no cell-phone (even turned off), no recording device (ditto), no laptop (even in bag), no water … no nothing except a pen and paper. No wonder there were no journalists sitting in the Press Gallery, while Jeff Sessions rambled on to an audience of Jim Bunning, some tourists in the rafters, and 75 empty wooden chairs (at least from my vantage point).

C-Span was a great breakthrough 25 years ago, but it’s utterly inadequate now. There should be cameras all over those rooms, and the viewing chambers should be filled with people actually enthusiastic about quietly watching (and recording) the facade of democratic debate, while the reporters continue chasing down stories in the corridors and keeping their eye on the same TV monitors we can watch in Los Angeles.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Tue, 22 May 2007 22:17:08 +0000

I 5th that… Gov’t would screw it up and make me download some spyware video player… What you’re describing is a media company and the gov’t is not a media company.

By: TJC in FL

TJC in FL — Tue, 22 May 2007 19:34:51 +0000

Howard and Cooler are right. If Congress does this for us “for free” it will cost us ten times as much as just buying the clips we want from a private service like CQ. In fact, most of the services that our government provides to us “for free” can be divided into one of two categories: those that people want, which should be provided by the private sector, and those that no one wants, which should not be provided at all.

By: Cooler Heads

Cooler Heads — Tue, 22 May 2007 18:09:36 +0000

I agree with Howard. I don’t my tax dollars spent making a clipping service for bloggers. How about more money on rebuilding dying cities or helping create jobs? Less money for the intellectual elite who make a living being snarky.

By: Howard Owens

Howard Owens — Tue, 22 May 2007 17:29:59 +0000

Jeff, I don’t see it the way you do.

The government should make all information free. Equal access for all.

But the government should not be in the business of providing services that compete with private enterprise.

In other words, the government should not be creating a clipping service. They just make the information easily available to any company that wants to create a service around the available information, documents, video, what not.

The government has no business setting up services that compete with private enterprise.

By: Tansley - addendum

Tansley - addendum — Tue, 22 May 2007 16:23:32 +0000

Well, give them TIME, Jeff…after all, the Dems have only had the wheel for a few months now…and they’re not exactly picking up a good head of steam, what with the republican remnant trying to maintain their current highwire act.

Maybe we should all email Nancy Pelosi about this. She’s been pitching questions on ‘what do we want to see?’ to Yahoo for a few days now… This’d be a pretty good example.