"We like the C-SPAN model..."

...As do I, which I why I recommend this new site, loaded with unedited political, cultural, and socially-related videos, transcripts and forums (ahem): FORA.tv




A quick look at their about page clues the reader in to their philosophy of engaged democracy, using the promise of Web 2.0 to deliver information and fully interactive environment to facilitate discussion and sharing of ideas:

Travel to New York and pick up the Village Voice. Or look in TimeOut London. Or check out the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Sydney Morning Herald. Every day, poets, authors, policy experts, activists, madmen, government leaders, visionary thinkers speak in public, hosted by institutions such as nonprofit councils, bookstores, universities, or public spaces. If you're lucky, their remarks will be covered by the press, edited and compressed, and hard to find when you want it.

But you can't be there. You can't express your opinions. You can't chat with other likeminded or different-minded listeners. You can't easily search for similar content, study background material, read the transcript.

FORA.tv enables a new, global media opportunity by aggregating a daily range of events, produced and electronically shipped by institutions or freelance producers, from around the world.

Scan further through the Bios of its staff, and you'll see an interesting mix of executives, investors and advisors: a former News Corp(!) Marketing Director for Australia's FOXTEL (Brian Gruber, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer); Hearst family heir and director of the Hearst Corporation and Hearst-Argyle Television, William Randolph Hearst, III; a former record label exec (Bob Appel, Senior Vice President, Operations); and current CUNY Professor of English and Journalism, and columnist for Media Matters For America and the Nation, Eric Alterman.

They've also got former Discovery Channel exec and chief speechwriter for President Bill Clinton, Don Baer, on the board.

Fairly diverse group, I'd say.

And it's heartening to see such a diverse and monied media group buck the trend and work together to encourage dialog, unfiltered:

Why don't you edit programs?

We like the C-SPAN model. No intermediation, no one deciding what you should or should not see. Have access to the entire event, with search and browsing tools that allow you to watch a chapter, or "snack" on short segments, either to get a sense of what the program offers or to get what you want, easily and enjoyably.

Put that in your snack-hole, FOX.

You've been totally C-SPAN'd!


P.S. - Also check out the FORA.tv Blog!