politics

CNN has planned an online experience that complements rather than reproduces the televised broadcast of the presidential debates, according to Alex Wellen, Deputy Political Director of CNNPolitics.com. As more and more viewers are watching the broadcast with their laptops close at hand, real-time reactions from CNN analysts, the People Meter, and scorecards have become an […]

Big media companies need to stop imitating traditional television formats in online video, according to BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis. There’s no reason to do stand-ups and b-roll when the Internet provides the opportunity to reinvent the entire format, he says.

The theme of women in power has played a central role in media coverage this election, according to Rachel Sklar, editor of The Huffington Post’s Eat The Press page. Sklar spoke on a panel at the TimeWarner Politics 08 Summit today called “Playing Politics with Gender – Media, Candidates, and the Majority Vote.”

When a candidate says something that is incorrect, pointing it out to the viewers isn’t partisan, according to Campbell Brown, anchor of CNN’s Campbell Brown: Election Center. “If I don’t [point it out to my viewers], I’m insulting their intelligence, and I’m not comfortable with myself, because I’m ignoring something that is clearly factual and […]

Barack Obama and John McCain weren’t the only ones battling it out during Tuesday’s town hall-style debate: CNN Digital Network vied with msnbc.com and other major players for the most unique visitors. CNN came out on top, the company announced today, generating 8.3 million uniques and 67 million total minutes spent on the site. CNN […]

The comedy video website Funny or Die, humor site 23/6 and The Huffington Post have teamed up to create Huff or Die, accessible at funnyordie.com/huffordie, to showcase their best political humor videos and blog posts. Funny or Die made the announcement last week.

The new interactive video platform Ved.io, which allows users to annotate video with links, pictures, and commentary, opened to the public yesterday. Ved.io’s coverage of Friday’s debate brings information from the web–like voting records, news, analysis, and quotes–to a screen adjacent to the streaming video.

Msnbc.com’s interactive debate video player, launched on Friday at politics.msnbc.com in time for the first presidential contest, allows viewers to watch or re-watch the debate footage and jump ahead to specific topics by clicking on one of twenty keywords.

Global television network Current TV has teamed up with Twitter for “Hack the Debate,” a live broadcast of the debates this evening that will display real-time Twitter comments from its audience on the screen. The broadcast visualization and online streaming will be powered by Adobe Flash, and the list of cable and satellite channels that […]

  Not only was this past Saturday Night Live’s broadcast a big hit on television, with its biggest season premiere audience since 2001, it has created the most popular online video clip ever published by NBC, a network spokesperson has told Beet.TV.  The opening Sarah Palin/Hilary Clinton skit performed by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler […]

The immense interest in Republican vice presidential nominee Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has driven 38 million video views over the past week, including YouTube videos, broadcast videos and spoofs, reports the Silicon Alley Insider’s Michael Learmonth.  Michael has created his report on numbers provided TubeMogul.

Purple States TV, an online political show reported through the eyes of five citizen journalists, will syndicate its videos to The Washington Post politics site beginning tomorrow, founder and executive producer Cynthia Farrar told me in an interview on the Beet.TV rooftop earlier today. The videos will be featured on the front page of the […]

More online viewers watched coverage of the Barack Obama acceptance speech and coverage of the Democratic National Convention on August 29 on msnbc.com than any other news site, including CNN, the company announced today, citing Nielsen Online numbers.

The first blockbuster web series has yet to be born, as Brian Stelter observed in his “New York Times” article Sunday, but there are plenty of content creators trying to change that. Santa Monica-based web production company Generate launched the political satire web series “Republicrats” August 18 and will premiere the second season of dark […]

Last night House Speaker Nancy Pelosi answered questions about Congress, the economy, and marijuana legalization–posed not by journalists and pundits, but by contributors to online communities iReport.com and Digg.com. The interview is one of the ways CNN is adding the “voice of real people on the ground” to their election coverage, according to CNN.com Senior […]

Blog coverage of the DNC is high with a record 120 blogs credentialed to cover the convention. CNET reporter Kara Tsuboi goes behind the scene in the “Big Tent,” a sort of giant blogger lounge sponsored by Google, YouTube and Digg.  I’ve posted Kara’s report here.

In what we consider a milestone in the syndication of live online video news, CNN has introduced a widget for its live streaming service.

Free Tibet 2008 reports today that Brian Conley, creator of citizen journalist video blog Alive in Baghdad, was detained Tuesday in Beijing with friend Jeffrey Rae. Conley’s wife received a text message at 12:30 Beijing time yesterday that said, “In jail. All fine.” Conley and Rae shot and distributed video of a Students for a […]

The campaign videos of presumptive Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain, are being hosted on Blip.tv, the small New York-based video publishing site, Beet.TV has confirmed.

As network television has largely abandoned live coverage of the national political conventions, the online media world is expanding coverage and resources.