Though some of it is being expressed in a joking manner, there appears to be some serious disappointment, beyond what I personally expressed earlier today, with the Senate’s first attempt at video webcasting.
The single-camera webcast, unveiled today, shows the desks of only nine of 42 senators, and it shows them from behind. That prompted a series of jokes on the Senate floor today, the New Mexico Independent is reporting.
“This does create the impression out there that all senators are bald,” said Albuquerque Democratic Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, whose head appears shiny in the video.
Sen. Steve Fischmann, D-Las Cruces, got in on the joking with this quip:
“I’ve heard that there’s already a raging discussion about how much advertising space might cost on top of Ortiz y Pino’s head,” he said. “And I’ve already put together a subsidiary to sell advertising there for $2.10 per minute…”
“But senators’ campaign messages, Fischmann said, could get even better exposure if planted on his own, bigger, balder noggin,” the NMI article states.
“My head, it’s closer to the camera and (the ads) will be bigger and they’ll cost $3.50,” Fischmann said.
There’s more from the senators, so you should check out the NMI article.
Journalists more critical
Journalists were harsher in their criticism of the lone camera.
“Now, I don’t know what you were hoping to see, but I was kind of hoping to see more than a handful of (the backs of) senators. A pan across the room every once and a while would have been nice as well, maybe a zoom in on the person talking,” The Santa Fe New Mexican’s Kate Nash wrote on her blog. “I don’t want to sound unappreciative or anything, because this is a step in the right direction, but the camera really doesn’t show everything it could have, and should have.”
The Santa Fe Reporter’s Dave Maass was especially harsh on his newspaper’s blog. He latched on to the fact that it was rookie Sen. John Sapien, D-Corrales, who introduced the amendment to the webcasting resolution cutting the cameras from three to one.
Maass took issue with a news release sent out by Senate Democrats claiming that Sapien “helps to pass Web streaming in the Senate.”
“Bull-hooey!” Maass wrote. “Sapien had five amendments lined up to force a 2/3 supermajority vote on a simple bill to use the technology the Senate had already purchased to Web cast the Senate floor session for all the state to see.”
“Sapien’s seat isn’t even in the frigging frame! … Citizens, rise-up: You’ve been scammed,” he wrote. “… New headline: SENATOR SAPIEN HELPS TO PASS SELF-SERVING CRAPPY WEB STREAMING IN THE SENATE.”
“PS. Don’t you love that ‘not an official record’ disclosure. This is because New Mexico Senators believe they are masters of space and time. They can vote to alter their record of reality,” Maass wrote at the end of his posting.
Ha!