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First Hill Hearing To Be 'Live-Blogged'

The rise of blogs within Washington made this breaking news inevitable: A House subcommittee for the first time will make room for citizen journalists to "live-blog" a congressional hearing.

The International Relations Subcommittee on Global Human Rights, Africa and International Operations will hold the hearing Wednesday at 10 a.m., and the topic is most appropriate. The panel will examine the role that U.S. companies like Google and Yahoo play in filtering Internet content in countries like China.

"Modern communications have empowered individuals to get their news from different sources," said subcommittee Chairman Chris Smith, R-N.J., "and blogs have become a regular news source for many Americans -- particularly students and younger people. Live-blogs from different events in Congress will enable more Americans to hear their elected representatives, allow for increased transparency and encourage greater civic participation."

The hearing also will be webcast via the committee's Web site for bloggers who want to cover the event remotely.

UPDATE: Brad Dayspring, a spokesman in Smith's office, said three organizations so far have confirmed their plans to live-blog the hearing. Two of them, Human Events Online and TownHall.com, are more traditional online media outlets that also have blogs. RedState is the only pure blog on the list for now, though Dayspring said he is waiting to hear from at least two others.

All three are conservative publications. Dayspring said the blogs that have not yet confirmed would fall elsewhere within the political spectrum but declined to elaborate or name the blogs.

UPDATE II: Dayspring just e-mailed with another follow-up. "At this point," he said, "our logistical ceiling is five blogs, so that will be our maximum. Also invited were Tapped from The American Prospect and Slashdot."

UPDATE III: Mark Tapscott, a blogger and media expert at the Heritage Foundation, asked me a good question about connections for the bloggers in the hearing room, so I forwarded it to Dayspring.

The answer: The subcommittee is going beyond just making room for the bloggers at the press table and instead "will be setting up a connection for them."

UPDATE IV: The subcommittee has finalized the list of bloggers, Dayspring said on Tuesday. The last two slots will be filled by Rebecca MacKinnon of Harvard University and The New York Times.

Yes, that stodgy, old media stalwart -- the one that keeps its blogs behind a subscription firewall -- gets a choice seat in what otherwise is a groundbreaking moment for citizen media. I'm not sure of the logic in giving the Times a seat at the bloggers' table, but hey, it's still progress.

The list of witnesses, as reprinted in a press release from Smith's office, is below:

Panel I
-- James Keith, State Department senior adviser for China and Mongolia
-- David Gross, deputy assistant secretary of State for international communications and information policy

Panel II
-- Mark Chandler, vice president and general counsel for Cisco Systems
-- Jack Krumholtz, director of government affairs and associate general counsel at Microsoft
-- Michael Callahan, general counsel for Yahoo
-- Elliot Schrage, vice president of communications and corporate affairs at Google

Panel III
-- Lucie Morillon, head of the Internet freedom desk at Reporters Without Borders
-- Harry Wu, publisher of the China Information Center
-- Libby Liu, president of Radio Free Asia
-- Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at the University of California at Berkeley
-- Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China

Posted by | 02:42 PM

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» "First Hill Hearing To Be 'Live-Blogged'" from Hobnobblog
The rise of blogs within Washington made this breaking news inevitable: A House subcommittee for the first time will make room for citizen journalists to "live-blog" a congressional hearing. The International Relations Subcommittee on Global Human Righ... [Read More]

Tracked on February 14, 2006 12:08 AM

» "First Hill Hearing To Be 'Live-Blogged'" from Hobnobblog
The rise of blogs within Washington made this breaking news inevitable: A House subcommittee for the first time will make room for citizen journalists to "live-blog" a congressional hearing.The International Relations Subcommittee on Global Human Right... [Read More]

Tracked on February 14, 2006 12:12 AM

» China Hearings to be Live-Blogged from Tapscott's Copy Desk
Three blogs are signed up as of this afternoon to live-blog Wednesday's hearing of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Global Human Rights, Africa and International Operations hearing on U.S. technology firms and China's suppression of ... [Read More]

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» Does State Department Have A Clue? from Democracy Project
I was very encouraged to see in the latest press release from Congressman Smith’s office that his House International Relations Subcommittee hearing tomorrow will be the first ever live-blogged. (Beltway Blogroll picked it up here.) I was very encourag... [Read More]

Tracked on February 14, 2006 02:42 PM

» Does State Department Have A Clue? from Democracy Project
I was very encouraged to see in the latest press release from Congressman Smith’s office that his House International Relations Subcommittee hearing tomorrow will be the first ever live-blogged. (Beltway Blogroll picked it up here.) I was very encourag... [Read More]

Tracked on February 14, 2006 03:34 PM

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