At the risk of turning every other other post at Blog P.I. into an update of what former colleagues are up to, I’ll attempt to turn your attention now to the launch of a new site by Danny Glover (just promoted to editor of Tech Daily, coincidentally) which happens to have been designed by a former colleague from my present job, Kris Meister. They say Washington is a small town, and it’s true, assuming you mean just the NW quadrant.
In any case, the site is called Air Congress, and it’s the logical progression of Danny’s work keeping track of congressional (and other professional) blogs at Beltway Blogroll. He writes in the Air Congress inaugural post:
Much of the content here will come directly from lawmakers themselves — the video clips they post from floor debate, the podcasts they create on various topics and more as today’s high-tech innovations take root in government.
The site also will highlight audio and video content about federal policy from other sources, including the executive branch, trade associations, advocacy groups, government watchdogs, journalists and bloggers. Plus there are plans for original AirCongress content.
The last bit is reassuring, because the biggest risk in Air Congress’ strategy is that the audio-visual content emanating from Capitol Hill is often excruciatingly dull. As someone who subscribes to to every political podcast I can find, from Judd Gregg to Xavier Becerra and Arnold Schwarzenegger to Dave Freudenthal — but rarely listen to any one of them — I think I speak with some authority.
That’s why I figure Air Congress’ best bet for success is not so much in being a collector of legislative podcasts (though if thorougly indexed, that could be useful) but rather in acting as a guide to the best, worst and most noteworthy among them. As Chris Anderson would say, we need a better filter.
To that end, I have a vague sense that such a project would benefit mightily from an open rating and tagging system, elements of which are already in use at YouTube and Daily Kos, respectively. Short of that, only the most dedicated political junkie could pull off such a feat — but then again, there’s every reason to think Danny is just that political junkie.
Thanks for the comments, Bill. You’re absolutely right about congressional audio/video; most of it is pretty dull on its own. A filter is precisely what I hope AirCongress will be — we listen so you don’t have to!
And I’m hoping to get bloggers involved in short order by welcoming their content. More on that in coming days.