Campaign conference call MP3s, day 2

Thursday, February 21, 2008 by Dave Winer.

Lots of leads for the MP3s of campaign conference calls after yesterday's piece, but so far not one actual MP3 has been squeezed out of MSM or the campaigns. 

I made official inquiries through the Obama and Clinton websites, no response yet. At least the Obama website seemed to understand that I wasn't offering to stuff envelopes or drive people to the polls.  

Hillary explained, in an email response, that she gets a lot of email and can't respond to each one individually. Then she listed all the ways I could help her campaign, including giving her money. That's a pretty incompetent way to respond to a press inquiry.  

One professional reporter explained that they don't publish press releases so why should they make the MP3s of the conference calls available. Oy. They clearly don't understand that as voters we might have an interest in unfiltered access to the actual words of the campaign. It never occurs to them, apparently, that not every voter sees their spin as a total value-add. 

Four years from now we'll look back at this in amazement that there was a day when campaigns hid their words and ideas behind the filters of the press.  

Anyway, until we have a regularly updating feed with MP3s of the campaign conference calls, I won't stop beating the drum. 

Steven Mays: "I'd love to hear these calls, raw and unedited."