Turns out that the House Communications Subcommittee was not able to provide streaming video online of its hearing on Comcast/NBCU Thursday (June 8), a high-profile deal one of whose key issues is access to online video. There must be cameras there, since a spokeswoman said today there would be video available in a couple of days, which sounds like a Federal Pony Express delivery in this day when communications is so instantaneous that even if you don’t snooze, you can still lose.
This latest bit of bad news for the RCMP (reporters covering media professionally) follows the House Judiciary Committee’s inability to provide streamed video of its field hearing on the deal from L.A. last month, ostensibly for similar problems.
Diversity was a big issue at the L.A. hearing, and will be at the Chicago hearing as well, with the Rev. Jesse Jackson of Rainbow/PUSH scheduled to speak, as well as NBCU Chief Diversity Officer Paula Madison. Seems a shame those siiues will not get a world-wider Web audience today.
It must be a lot tougher to stream video than I thought–so, obviously, not a “kid in his gym shorts in his dorm room” kind of easy–if two different congressional committees can’t get it done on the road.
I also hear from someone at the hearing that there is no wi ifi or wireless reception in the Dirksen federal building (the one in Chicago, not D.C.), where the hearing is being held.
Hmmm. Federal building where you can’t stream video or get wi fi. That would not be my choice of buildings for the hearing, even if it does have the comfort factor of bearing the same name as the one on Capitol Hill, though that is a Senate office building and this is a House subcommittee.
Next time, maybe they should check out a Starbucks.
