Noteworthy stats from the new “Did You Know?” video:
* More video was posted to YouTube in the last two months than if ABC, NBC and CBS has been airing content 24/7/365 since 1948;
* ABC, CBS and NBC, which have been in existence a combined 200 years, get 10 million unique visitors a month. Meanwhile, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace collect 250 million unique visitors every month – and none of them existed six years ago.
Of course, the big challenge is how to stand out in this new communications marketplace. With more than a dozen videos collecting at least 10,000 views in the last year or so – and with my last two videos collecting more than 290,000 views and 43,000 views in just a few days – Frank Strategies can help your organization or candidate break through the clutter.
Disclosure: Frank Strategies LLC produced this video. (Although the credit really goes to Creigh Deeds…)
Here’s a pretty good new online video from House GOP Whip Eric Cantor. The video simply shows a Democratic clerk reading one of the House health-care reform bills. More specifically, it shows how many times she uses one unpleasant word: “require.”
This is the kind of thing that works best as an online video. The Whip’s office could’ve put out a news release saying that the word “requires ” is in the bill 84 times. But it’s obviously much more effective to show somebody saying the word over and over dozens of times to drive it home in a way that will echo in people’s skulls for hours on end. Kudos to the leadership staff.
Headline: “Lashing out at the Capitol”
“Tens of thousands of conservative protesters, many complaining that the nation is racing toward socialism, massed outside the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, angrily denouncing President Obama’s health-care plan and other initiatives as threats to the Constitution.” — The Washington Post, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009
Headline: “Thousands Protest Bush Policy”
“A raucous and colorful multitude of protesters, led by some of the aging activists of the past, staged a series of rallies and a march on the Capitol yesterday to demand that the United States end its war in Iraq.
“Under a blue sky with a pale midday moon, tens of thousands of people angry about the war and other policies of the Bush administration danced, sang, shouted and chanted their opposition.” – The Washington Post, Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007
Got that?
Liberal protestors are “colorful” and “dance” and “sing” “under a blue sky with a pale midday moon.”
And conservative/libertarian protestors “lash out at the Capitol,” “complain” and “angrily denounce” the President.
Nope. No bias here – just move along, please.
Meanwhile, my quick video from the scene has been viewed more than 121,000 times in less than 48 hours. Of course, everybody who’s viewed the video is an astroturf operative paid by the health-insurance industry to do so.
Filed under: Energy / Environment, Government Spending, Health Care, Obama, Online Video, Protest, Republican Party, Shameless Self Promotion
Here are some video highlights that I just shot at the big 9/12 Taxpayer Tea Party March in DC. Crowd estimates are varying widely, but it’s safe to say it’s by far the largest gathering of grassroots small-government folks I’ve ever seen in my 15+ years living in DC.
Not since I stood in line all night long on the Mall with tens of thousands of other proud Americans to view President Reagan’s casket in the Capitol’s Rotunda have I felt more hopeful that people on our side really care passionately about what happens in Washington.
Anyway, here’s the video. No swastikas, counter-protesters or profanity to edit out – it’s a very peaceful crowd full of proud, yet very concerned, Americans who are just exercising their First Amendment rights.
Yesterday we got a glimpse at the future – or maybe the current state – of investigative journalism when Andrew Breitbart’s new blog, Big Government, posted undercover video of Baltimore ACORN staffers helping two conservative activists set up a brothel that would have supposedly featured underage prostitutes. Or “dependents” as the ACORN tax advisor helpfully counseled.
Within hours of the posting of the video, it was prominently featured on Glenn Beck’s popular Fox News Channel show, and the two ACORN employees had been fired and may be facing criminal charges.
With mainstream media outlets slashing investigative reporting budgets, online video shot by political activists is quickly becoming the way to expose corruption and hypocrisy to the world. And while many in the mainstream media decry this development, I welcome it.
The notion that the New York Times or the Washington Post ever stood up as impartial watchdogs looking out for the public good is laughable. These publications and other MSM outlets have always had a left-leaning political agenda, and their story selection – including what institutions to investigate or “expose” – has always been skewed to fit their agendas.
One needs to look no further than the Post’s recent series of front-page non-stories about Virginia’s GOP gubernatorial nominee – and the near-complete absence of articles about an avowed communist and 9-11 Truther in a senior White House position, ACORN corruption, union corruption, etc. – to see that. The Post’s coverage, quite literally, has become a public joke.
So now we’re all investigative journalists. Yes, we’re biased. But so is every MSM reporter and editor, at least to some degree. So let’s get the facts out there and make it impossible for the mainstream media to ignore them.
Embedded below is the undercover ACORN video shot by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, as well as a hilarious video that O’Keefe shot a few years ago, which brilliantly exposes the absurdity of political correctness on college campuses. In the second video, O’Keefe and a few friends pretend to be distraught Irish Americans who petition to have Lucky Charms cereal removed from the cafeteria on the grounds that it promotes negative stereotypes and creates a hostile environment for them. Incredibly, they were apparently successful in getting Lucky Charms removed from cafeterias at Rutgers University.
Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute provides a great rebuttal to folks who repeatedly claim that public schools are underfunded.
A thousand academic white papers have made the same point, but you’ll have much more success ending the inevitable education-funding rant at your next happy hour if you just print this chart out and whip it out of your back pocket at the appropriate time. Then use your Flip video camera to record your lefty friend’s stuttering and stammering for all of YouTube to see.
Filed under: Online Video
Memo to defensive politicians: you cannot stop the YouTube, you can only hope to contain it.
And if you try to stop it, you’re just going to look like a jerk.
Exhibit A:
