Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert was the speaker at this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner. While we're all still wondering who lost their job for booking Colbert -- who openly roasted President Bush and even made his own "audition tape" for the White House Press Secretary position -- the truly amazing part is how fast the speech has made the rounds online.
Just a few years ago, the lucky few who are invited to this event every year and a handful of C-SPAN viewers were the only ones who would see the featured speaker. This year, Colbert is being downloaded just about everywhere. One Metzger staffer even has the clip (in three parts) on a Windows Mobile device.
There's a few reminders here:
- You can run, but you can't hide, from today's communications infrastructure. While this may have gotten some play in the media (in sound bites), the entire speech will be making the rounds for months in today's wired world.
- News travels like never before. C-SPAN has been covering this event for years, but C-SPAN's ratings have never been off the charts. Now, all it takes is one person to post on a site like YouTube and you've got the potential for a viral phenomenon.
- The ability to "control" continues to erode. It's much easier to work with one network to try to pull a broadcast than it is to stop anyone with a broadband hookup from posting a video someplace in cyberspace five minutes after you successfully get it pulled from someplace else. Now more than ever, you really can't "unring" the bell.
If it can be digitized, it can be posted. If it gets posted, it can be found. If it's found and people like it, it will be passed around. If it's damaging to your company, your client or your candidate, you've got your hands full.
By the way, you can see the video here.
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