Robert Novak writes in his column this morning:
A new video available on YouTube marks a late attempt by pro-life forces to avert serious defeat in Missouri Nov. 7, with national implications. Cathy Ruse, speaking for Missourians Against Human Cloning…
Wait, wait, wait. Did 75-year-old Bob Novak — the so-called Prince of Darkness — just make a passing reference to 1-year-old social networking/video sharing website YouTube without so much as a dependent clause explaining that it’s even a website? I think he just did.
Which probably says something about the stratospheric rise of this particular company and website, and the resulting rapid proliferation of video-blogging. It wasn’t like this for blogs, at all. As I pointed out in the second post ever at Blog P.I., tech journalists such as David Pogue still feel they have to remind television viewers that a blog is “like a diary or a daily opinion column that you post on the Internet for all to see and comment on.” Yet Novak name checks YouTube like it’s an IBM Selectric.
To be sure, Novak is writing for a politically savvy audience, while Pogue and others often aim for a nothing-savvy audience. But then again, I wouldn’t exactly say political Washington has demonstrated a great deal of web literacy.
If you’re curious about the specifics of what Novak refers to, the above-mentioned group has created a short video featuring Ms. Ruse making her case against a human cloning-related ballot measure (the details of which Novak covers more than adequately):
There’s not that much to it. And at the time of this writing it’s only been viewed 1,334 times, but in a world of asymmetrical media, sometimes that’s enough.
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