C-SPAN Goes High Tech for Convention Coverage

Politics is not the focus on this blog but it is the season which comes around every four years when politics invades everything we do and so it is with my blogging. And with the Democratic National Convention being held in Denver next week it is hard to not want to be a part of the excitement. Actually, I am a political and news junkie.

I have been a fan of C-SPAN and Brian Lamb for 5 or 6 years after discovering BookTV one lazy Saturday afternoon when I was looking for something to watch as I settled down for a winter nap. I started noticing how the news coverage of what happened on the Hill was strikingly different than what actually transpired during debate or how sound bites could be used out of context to bolster any position. So I became intrigued with getting my information first hand.

My impression is that C-SPAN is always willing to take advantage of new technology. The first I heard about the new XM-To Go portable was on some C-SPAN program when Brian Lamb was announcing the roll-out of C-SPAN radio. Their coverage of the party conventions confirms what I always believed.

When I posted a twitter message about watching the Saddleback Presidential forum on C-SPAN I received a message inviting me to watch the coverage on the C-SPAN Convention Hub. I'm hooked!




From Techcrunch:

But today C-SPAN gets fairly cool with the launch of two new sites dedicated to the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver and Republican Convention in Minneapolis. ...links for DNC08 and RNC08. Both are similarly formatted sites that incorporate citizen journalism via blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Qik into portals to cover convention and related news. They will complement the existing C-SPAN Politics.

Third party blog content from sites like Huffington Post, Instapundit, Gateway Pundit, RedState, etc. will be incorporated into the site and Twitter messages marked with hash marks #RNC08 or #DNC08 will also appear on the site (with moderation). C-SPAN employees will be given Qik cameras to record the action when not on main camera.

All in all, it’s a great effort to spice up coverage with user-generated, up-to-the-minute content. This may not make the cable channel more watchable, but political nuts will definitely want to bookmark the sites. It may have the most up to date news on the conventions.

Common-place: A Site for History Buffs

I have thoroughly enjoyed hearing from a few of you patient souls who take the time to read my blog and then to comment. My subject matter has certainly wandered far astray, at times, from the original intent. But, that is how my mind works and if a blog is to be representative of its creator than the peripatetic nature of this site meets that criteria.

From comments and feedback received, I sense there is an interest in history and particularly American History among my readers and I would like to recommend this online journal to anyone fascinated with life in America prior to the 1900s. I especially like it because it combines the study of history with a discussion of worthy ideas and does so while emphasizing the use of language.

Common-place is a common place for exploring and exchanging ideas about early American history and culture. A bit friendlier than a scholarly journal, a bit more scholarly than a popular magazine, Common-place speaks--and listens--to scholars, museum curators, teachers, hobbyists, and just about anyone interested in American history before 1900. Common-place is a common place for all sorts of people to read about all sorts of things relating to early American life--from architecture to literature, from politics to parlor manners.

Common-place also aims to be a place for elegant prose and worthy ideas. Not perhaps, as elegant and worthy as the snippets of prose early Americans liked to jot down in their own commonplace books but more elegant, we hope, than much purely scholarly writing, particularly the kind that comes chock full of jargon. And, unlike much popular writing about history, which tends to focus on great men and great events, Common-place embraces the commonplace, or ordinary, in American life.

Our features, reviews, and columns track the lives of ordinary men and women, embracing new scholarship, teaching, and exhibits that explore all aspects of America's past and its many peoples.

With the exception of a few daguerrotypes (invented in 1839) Common-place won't dazzle you with snazzy graphics. But it will take you on a tour of what's best in early American scholarship, teaching, and curatorship--and it will take advantage of the web's most important feature: bringing people together to discuss ideas.

Common-place readers can join in the discussion of any of our features, reviews, and columns by visiting the Republic of Letters, an on-line messageboard.

The Common-Place Coffeeshop offers readers a place to discuss the contents of the articles and although it hasn't had much activity I think we could help generate some interesting and worthy discussion.

This online journal is sponsored by the American Antiquarian Society in association with the Florida State University Department of History. It is published quarterly, in October, January, April, and July. Previous issues can be viewed at the website.

Happy reading !!