Scoble Sighting: If It's Friday, It Must Be New Hampshire

Some good coverage from the day’s activities in New Hampshire. Looks like our embed has recovered from a late night — by the way, a few other folks have enjoyed the phone call with PodTech’s Paul Lancour last night.

One topic today that’s occupying some space — is covering the use of technology in politics too political?

The answer, we believe, is no.

But the argument is a real one — just by showing up with a camera, Scoble has the power to influence popular opinion, even if his goal, PodTech’s goal, and his viewing audience’s goal is simply to see how social media and technology are being used in the political process.

There’s no way around the fact that publicity through Scoble’s blog or this site is both free and targeted. All news (in this case, meaning reported journalism), falls into this category of providing publicity for free. Professional journalists may be more aware of how they’re being used by the politicians, and therefore better able to avoid becoming mere mouthpieces or tools, or so goes the argument.

The fact is that the Edwards campaign did invite bloggers, video bloggers and other citizens to see the candidate up close. But they also hired their own video teams and they’re putting their own footage up there alongside the citizens’ work. (Links from the campaign site now point to YouTube for footage from Town Hall meetings and other events over the last two days).

In the meantime, Scoble has kept his coverage pretty focused on the tech angle, while the loudest voices complaining about politicized blogging are the ones commenting on his blog (they are probably responding to the few blatantly political comments that are also there…).

The whole gang should be on their way to Nevada by now. Robert, you’re almost home. Keep up the great work!

Tags: Edwards campaign

This entry was posted on Friday, December 29th, 2006 at 4:47 pm and is filed under PodTech, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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