I understand that the BBC trash the output from the News channel after 28 days. Shame, really.
On 16 March 2010 12:02, Dave Crossland <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > Good stuff. > > Regards, Dave > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: "Dave Farber" <[email protected]> > Date: 16 Mar 2010, 11:56 AM > Subject: [IP] C-Span Puts Full Archives on the Web > To: "ip" <[email protected]> > > > > > > Begin forwarded message: > > *From:* Richard Forno <[email protected]> > *Date:* March 16, 2010 7:31:59 AM EDT > *To:* Undisclosed-recipients: <>; > *Cc:* Dave Farber <[email protected]> > *Subject:* *C-Span Puts Full Archives on the Web* > > March 16, 2010 > C-Span Puts Full Archives on the Web > By BRIAN STELTER > > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/arts/television/16cspan.html?pagewanted=print > WASHINGTON — Researchers, political satirists and partisan mudslingers, > take note: C-Span has uploaded virtually every minute of its video archives > to the Internet. > > The archives, at C-SpanVideo.org, cover 23 years of history and five > presidential administrations and are sure to provide new fodder for pundits > and politicians alike. The network will formally announce the completion of > the C-Span Video Library on Wednesday. > > Having free online access to the more than 160,000 hours of C-Span footage > is “like being able to Google political history using the ‘I Feel Lucky’ > button every time,” said Rachel Maddow, the liberal MSNBC host. > > Ed Morrissey, a senior correspondent for the conservative blog Hot Air ( > hotair.com), said, “The geek in me wants to find an excuse to start > digging.” > > No other cable network is likely to give away its precious archives on the > Internet. (Even “Book TV” is available.) But C-Span is one of a kind, a > creation of the cable industry that records every Congressional session, > every White House press briefing and other acts of official Washington. > > The online archives reinforce what some would call the Web’s single best > quality: its ability to recall seemingly every statement and smear. And it > is even more powerful when the viewer can rewind the video. > > The C-Span founder, Brian Lamb, said in an interview here last week that > the archives were an extension of the network’s public service commitment. > > “That’s where the history will be,” Mr. Lamb said. > > C-Span has been uploading its history for several years, working its way to > 1987, when its archives were established at Purdue University, Mr. Lamb’s > alma mater. > > The archive staff now operates from an office park in West Lafayette, Ind., > where two machines that can turn 16 hours of tapes into digital files each > hour have been working around the clock to move C-Span’s programs online. > They are now finishing the 1987 catalog. > > “This is the archive’s coming of age, in a way, because it’s now so > accessible,” said Robert Browning, director of the archives. > > Historically, the $1 million-a-year operation has paid for itself partly by > selling videotapes and DVDs to journalists, campaign strategists and others. > > Mr. Browning acknowledges that video sales have waned as more people have > viewed clips online. “On the other hand, there are a lot of things people > now watch that they never would have bought,” he said. > > The archives’ fans include Ms. Maddow, who called it gold. “It’s raw > footage of political actors in their native habitat, without media > personalities mediating viewers’ access,” she wrote in an e-mail message. > > Similarly, Mr. Morrissey said the archives made “for a really intriguing > reference set.” He pointed out, however, that the volume of videos “is so > vast that finding valuable references may be a bit like looking for a needle > in a haystack.” > > C-Span executives said they hoped that its search filters would be up to > the task. Mr. Lamb said, “You can see if politicians are saying one thing > today, and 15 years ago were saying another thing.” > > He added, “Journalists can feast on it.” > > One of the Web site’s features, the Congressional Chronicle, shows which > members of Congress have spoken on the House and Senate floors the most, and > the least. Each senator and representative has a profile page. Using the > data already available, some newspapers have written about particularly > loquacious local lawmakers. > > C-Span was established in 1979, but there are few recordings of its > earliest years. Those “sort of went down the drain,” Mr. Browning said. But > he does have about 10,000 hours of tapes from before 1987, and he will begin > reformatting them for the Web soon. Those tapes include Ronald Reagan’s > presidential campaign speeches and the Iran-Contra hearings. > > In a tour of the site last week, Mr. Browning said the various uses of the > archives were hard to predict. He found that a newly uploaded 1990 United > Nations address by the Romanian president Ion Iliescu was quickly discovered > and published by several Romanian bloggers. > > While C-Span does not receive Nielsen ratings, a recent poll by Fairleigh > Dickinson University found that 52 percent of voters said they watched it at > least once in a while. The poll did not distinguish among C-Span’s three > channels. The original one, C-Span, shows every House of Representatives > session; C-Span2 does the same for the Senate; and C-Span3 shows committee > hearings, briefings, conferences and other events. > > The archives of all three channels have been mostly uploaded, but they can > only be streamed. Mr. Browning said video downloads were on his agenda. > Users can embed the videos on other Web sites and clip small sound bites for > repeat viewing. > > The clips can help citizens gain access to important information, of > course, but they can also be entertaining. > > Last month one of the top clips on the C-Span site was from President > Obama’s health care summit meeting, but it wasn’t of a comment about > proposed legislation, it was of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. caught on > a microphone saying, “It’s easy being vice president.” A spokesman for the > vice president told reporters that Mr. Biden was “obviously joking.” > > Regardless, the archives are a reminder that the cameras are always > recording. For politicians or anyone else captured by C-Span, Mr. Browning > said, “there’s no more deniability.” > > Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/> <http://www.listbox.com> > > -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
