April 30, 2007

YouTubing the General Assembly

The Monday Nashville City Paper takes a look at how constant video coverage of the state legislature is affecting the way business gets done...

With the principle of open government in mind, this year, the General Assembly has live, streaming video via its Web site of every House and Senate floor session as well as each committee and subcommittee meeting. In addition, after the meeting or floor session is concluded, a video archive of that event is kept on the General Assembly's Web site. As a result, no matter if a reporter or a television camera was in the room, a video record was made. And that video record causes some lawmakers, like Black, to be on guard against saying something regretful.

That's because if something slips or an embarrassing moment occurs, the General Assembly's video stream feeds allow willing bloggers, enterprising reporters and crafty campaign strategists to capitalize on that video.

One person who's tuning in often is Ben Cunningham, the founder of Tennessee Tax Revolt. Cunningham uses the legislature's video streaming to keep a close eye on lawmakers and which bills are being discussed. He also uses software to splice short, 30-second or so clips from a two-hour committee meeting to post on his blog or on the Web site www.YouTube.com.

Cunningham said the Legislature's video streaming is "revolutionary" and noted that, because sessions and committee meetings are video-recorded, "there's a record there that the citizens can go back to any time now."