WP,pg1: On the Electronic Campaign Trail: Politicians Realize the Potential of Web Video

[DeepModem Mom]

On the Electronic Campaign Trail
Politicians Realize the Potential of Web Video
By Chris Cillizza and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, January 22, 2007; Page A01

.... if last year's midterms were the year of the rogue videographers, the already-underway 2008 presidential campaign is likely to be remembered as the point where Web video became central to the communications strategy of every serious presidential candidate.

Playing defense is only one use of Web video. Equally important, the candidates and their staffs see Web-based video as an inexpensive and potentially significant tool for telling their campaign story without the filters of the traditional media.

Call it the YouTube effect, and it is only growing. The video-sharing site, which less than a year after its founding was bought by Google for $1.65 billion, has revolutionized the transfer of information via video, spawned a number of imitators and forced candidates to recalibrate choices, from their announcement strategies to their staffing decisions.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), for example, is to participate in three live online chats starting tonight -- a rapid-fire follow-up to the announcement of her presidential ambitions via video Saturday. The campaign will solicit questions in advance and Clinton will respond on her Web site....

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To be sure, the political establishment remains slightly behind the technological curve -- innovative video work for presidential campaigns is more likely to be done by 20-somethings than more established media consultants -- but the times are clearly changing....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/21/AR2007012101074.html