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‘Rocketboom’ and the ethos of transparency
Play QuickTime
By J.D. Lasica
At Macworld Expo in early 2007, I bumped into Andrew Baron, founder and producer of the popular Internet TV program Rocketboom. He told me that a few weeks earlier he had accepted a payment from the political campaign of former Sen. John Edwards. Edwards (whom I previously met and personally admire) announced his run for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president on Rocketboom, with Baron flying down to Edwards’ campaign headquarters in North Carolina and wielding the camera.
"We did disclose it ... It’s part of the character and personality that we’ve adopted, but it’s not part of any journalistic integrity."
—Andrew Baron Baron said he received virtually no criticism afterward, perhaps because he disclosed that a fee was paid for the video announcement. He saw nothing wrong with this, he said, because Rocketboom has never claimed to be a news show or a journalistic enterprise. “Rocketboom is not a journalistic platform,” he said. “While we do do acts of journalism sometimes, it happens accidentally.
“We sometimes benefit by getting press access, and we don’t have to abide by journalistic standards,” he added. “It’s the best of both worlds.”
I found the anecdote relevant to our project’s look at transparency and disclosure, and Baron agreed to talk about it in this short video interview.
Length: 2:43
Capture device: Nokia N-93 camera phone
Download MPEG-4 video (6.2 MB) (If video won’t play, download QuickTime 7 for the PC or Mac)
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