High-tech Talent turns to podcasts
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/n...al/12778261.htm
Senator's speeches go online

By MATT STEARNS

The Star’s Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON –– Got Black Eyed Peas. Got Fatboy Slim. The iPod is fired up and ready to rock. But wait — where’s that Jim Talent speech?

Starting this week, you can enjoy the vocal stylings of the junior senator from Missouri while on your morning jog, walking the dog or just chilling at home.

Talent, who last year blogged his way through the Middle East, is going even more high-tech by joining the podcast bandwagon. He will put many of his speeches online as MP3 files for downloading to iPods or other digital audio players by way of iTunes, the online music store, and through his Senate Web site — talent.senate.gov.

The first podcast, which was posted Wednesday, was Talent’s 15-minute Senate floor speech in favor of John Roberts’ nomination as chief justice.

Talent is among the first senators — a famously tech-resistant bunch — to commit to podcasting. But the technology already is transforming the online political landscape.

Former senator and once-and-likely-future Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards podcasts from his political action committee’s Web site. The Republican National Committee has podcasts. Even two popular Missouri political Web sites, the liberal blog firedupmissouri.com and the online headline service johncombest.com, feature podcasts.

“It’s an effort to communicate with Missourians in an innovative way,” said Rich Chrismer, Talent’s spokesman. “The idea is to give Missourians as many ways as possible to get information from Talent’s office.”

Chrismer would not say whether Talent — between his blog and the podcast — now qualified as the grooviest senator.

Political strategists say podcasts provide a bounty of benefits.

People with an interest in an issue can listen to information whenever and wherever they want.

And best of all from a politician’s perspective, the pesky filter known as the media is carved out of the equation altogether.

Good for democracy, as young people get 99.9% of their news from the net -
or something new like this.

But, boy, I see another learning curve coming for us middle aged people.

I'm being left in the dust here...

I'm glad Jim is thinking ahead of the curve though...More should be doing it.

I wonder if what he will tell young people with pods will prove to be different from what he tells adults. Anyone keeping track of this?