Filed under: Online Video
Last month we told you about Congressman Buck McKeon’s “Congressional Reality Show” - short, unscripted, behind-the-scenes videos he’d started posting on YouTube and his official website.
Now it looks as if CNN has gotten into the act with its own version featuring first-term Congressmen Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Jared Polis (D-Colorado.)
Brian Selter had the scoop in yesterday’s New York Times:
“They’ve asked us to give insight into what it’s like to be a freshman and what it’s like to be a congressman,” Mr. Chaffetz said in a telephone interview.
In a statement, Mr. Polis added, “So much goes on behind the scenes in Washington that doesn’t make it onto C-Span and most people don’t get to see.”
The congressmen are using high-definition Flip cameras to document their days. Mr. Chaffetz is sleeping on a cot in his office to save money, and an aide filmed him as he unpacked his bed one evening.
“The camera makes it doable,” Mr. Chaffetz said of the project. “I can literally put it in my shirt pocket.” The men do most of the filming themselves, adding an appealing amateur quality to the segments, which will last 5 to 10 minutes each on CNN.com.
The weekly series will continue for a year on the Web.
Click here to watch the first installment. It should be interesting to see how this develops, and to see whether more Members of Congress start posting videos like this on their own websites and YouTube pages.
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