For immediate release – July 7, 2008
For more info: TVW President Greg Lane, 360-725-3999
Video Voters’ Guide begins today on TVW
Olympia – TVW and the Washington Secretary of State are offering the public a chance to watch direct, unedited statements from candidates for statewide office via the 2008 Video Voters’ Guide.
Beginning today and continuing through the Nov. 4 election – with separate primary and general election editions – TVW will televise the Video Voters’ Guide regularly on statewide cable television.
“The Video Voters’ Guide is a valuable public service and is one more way for the electorate to stay informed in this important election year,” said Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed. “We hope voters will follow their state and local races with the same interest and excitement they’re showing for this year’s presidential race.”
TVW and the Secretary of State have teamed up to offer the Video Voters’ Guide every two years since 1996. The guide features candidates for statewide offices: Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, State Auditor, Attorney General, Commissioner of Public Lands, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Insurance Commissioner, and Supreme Court Justice.
“Voters will hear many sound bites this election year, but it’s also important they get the whole picture,” said TVW President Greg Lane. “Beginning with the Video Voters’ Guide, our election coverage will give people the chance to watch the candidates talk to them directly, straight and unedited.”
The guide also will be available on the Web at tvw.org. Link to the Video Voters’ Guide Web page here: http://www.tvw.org/Elections/VideoVotersGuide.cfm?bhcp=1
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Note to media: TV, print, radio and news blog Web sites are encouraged to embed the 2008 Video Voters’ Guide on their sites using TVW’s new embedding tool, detailed below.
TVW, often called the Washington state version of C-SPAN, provides unedited gavel-to-gavel television coverage of the State Legislature, Supreme Court, executive branch, state boards and commissions, elections, and public policy events of statewide significance. TVW’s 2008 election coverage includes party conventions, candidate debates and forums, newspaper editorial board interviews, and a LIVE election night program. For the first time this fall TVW’s “Election Tuesdays” will highlight the network’s top weekly election coverage starting at 7 p.m., along with civics education programs featuring high school students and teachers.
Cable TV carries TVW for free, reaching 99% of the cable households in Washington, representing about 55% of the state population. Viewers can watch TVW programs on demand at tvw.org, which includes the largest archive of legislative streaming media in the world.
We’re pleased to announce TVW has added a new embedding tool to all programming found on its Web site tvw.org.
This new tool allows any event from TVW’s archives to be embedded into Web sites and blogs, and includes the ability to highlight a portion of the footage, but in a way that honors the balanced, unedited, gavel-to-gavel nature of TVW programming.
The new embedding tool is readily accessible just below the player window of every TVW video and audio event available at tvw.org.
Our goal is to be the most effective resource as possible for citizens to view the Legislature, state government and state public policy debate. We look forward to your comments, questions and suggestions, as well as working with you to improve our services.
Sincerely, Greg Lane, President
What is “embedding”?
Embedding is the ability to place a video or other object in HTML code in order to display it on a Web page. TVW will now allow you to “embed” a TVW video or audio event on another Web site or blog while TVW’s servers securely stream that content to your Web visitors.
Embedding instructions
Embedding TVW video on your Web site is simple and very similar to YouTube’s embed function. With a little knowledge of HTML you can quickly get TVW’s video playing on your Web Site or blog.
To embed an event from tvw.org:
* Click in the text field under the video player area or click “Embed”. This will select all of the code needed to copy into your site or blog’s HTML editor.
* Use the “Right mouse click” and chose “Copy.” This will copy the text to your computer’s clipboard.
* “Paste” this code into your Web site’s HTML code or your blog’s HTML editor.
(For specific hosted blog spheres and how to embed video code, please consult the appropriate help section of your blog site or contact your Webmaster.)
Advanced embedding options
TVW’s advanced virtual-clip feature is unique to the Web. This feature allows you to choose a “Start” and “Stop” time, essentially creating a virtual clip of a TVW event. This, however, does not edit the actual event – it allows a user to continue playing from the point the clip ends and review the event in its entirety right from your Web page or blog.
To use the advanced features, click the “Use Advanced Embed” button and set the start and stop times. These times must be in a HH:MM:SS format. You can also set the width dimensions of the video. The dimensions feature can only be set in conjunction with using the virtual-clip feature. To simply embed the video without a virtual-clip, click the “reset” or “Use Standard Embed” buttons. This will clear any advanced embed features. For further questions about TVW’s embedding feature, contact support@tvw.org.
