By Wendy Cook, Accuracy in Media
Thursday, April 5, 2007
If you're not already familiar with Qube TV... you should be! This "conservative YouTube," if you will, is trailblazing the way for conservative New Media. The vision of the three-week-old venture is to be a communal place for conservatives to gather without the fear of censorship or the concern that their news, ideas or videos will be suppressed or flagged as hate speech and deleted into thin air.
"I look at Qube TV as, if you will, a Home Depot for the videos, still pictures, social networking and blogging of the conservative movement," said Qube TV creator Jeff Lord in an exclusive interview with Accuracy in Academia. "Anyone who wants their own blog, their own website, will have it."
Not just another political site, Qube TV will offer many topics such as: sports, entertainment, video games, books, music and religion. "If some young conservative guy wants to pour out his soul about finding a young conservative girl we want him to come and set up his own space and pour out his rightward heart!" explained Lord. "There are as many topics of interest as there are conservatives--which is to say a lot!"
Will there be standards? "Sure. No pornography--we're a family site. And if some al-Qaeda type sends footage of an American kid being killed, unlike the New York Times, we will have the common sense and decency to get the thing removed ASAP--as conservatives we are big believers in the Constitution, which includes the First Amendment," pointed out Lord.
No stranger to politics, both creator Jeff Lord and associate Charlie Gerow worked under the Reagan administration, Lord serving as White House political director and Gerow as a campaign aide in all of Reagan's campaigns from 1976 on. He is presently founder of Quantum Communications, a PR firm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. "As we zero in on the niche market of conservatives one of the things we are counting on here is our own personal background as conservatives We believe we know what appeals to conservatives because we know what appeals to us," said Lord.
The idea first occurred to him as an "epiphany" as he fell asleep after attending his father's funeral earlier that day. He credits his Dad, a lifelong conservative, who held Calvin Coolidge's seat on the city council in Northampton, Massachusetts, for trying to think of something "new, different and upbeat to do in politics." The next morning he woke up and called Gerow first thing to share his new idea. He said Gerow paused and said, "Home run!"
Lord and Gerow both agree that this entrepreneurship is a risky one. Gerow has leveraged his PR firm to undertake this operation. "There are a lot easier ways to make money than to set up something like Qube TV," said Lord. But they both remain true believers: "This takes a lot of steely nerve and a considerable amount of sheer guts."
There is no comparison between YouTube and Qube TV, Lord feels. "I'm sure the people who invented it are good folks. What they are not, however, are conservative activists," he said alluding to the fact that YouTube was recently bought by Google where Al Gore resides as a board member. For example, in October of last year, YouTube banned a video by columnist Michelle Malkin claiming "inappropriate content." She questioned them on its "inappropriateness" but received no response back. Ironically, Jihad propaganda videos have allegedly been found on the site.
The online video-social networking market business is anything but stable. "The market is absolutely huge," remarked Lord. It is also profitable; YouTube's estimated worth is $1 billion dollars. Though recently it has experienced trouble; last week Viacom filed a $1 billion dollar lawsuit against the site over copyright issues. This does not bother Lord, "YouTube is having its own problems, a factor, I think, of being first. We can learn from their mistakes."
As to the effect of videos and blogging on the 2008 election, Lord personally believes that 2004 was the "blogger election" (Dan Rather/ National Guard story) and 2008 will be the "online video election."
"Somewhere along the line in this election cycle someone with a camera somewhere in America will wittingly or unwittingly capture something that, when it is surfaced--hopefully on Qube TV--will have a dramatic impact on the election. I'm not sure if that "victim" will be Republican or Democrat, but I think this is almost inevitable given the number of people walking around with cameras," said Lord.
Several Presidential campaigns have already expressed initial interest, including: Romney, Giuliani, McCain, Gilmore, Brownback and John Cox. In fact, Senator Brownback has given Qube TV an exclusive interview that will be posted on the site shortly.
Lord's ultimate goal is for Qube TV to become what he calls a "conservative army with cameras." He feels the trend in media is moving away from papers, radio and TV, to a more "man-in-the-street" style of reporting, "If we can plug the newest of technology directly into the power of the conservative movement itself, at long last conservatives will have an edge over the liberal media."
Qube TV may be the platform to catch the next "macaca moment" or John Kerry "joke" and make sure it does not go unnoticed as all too often happens when someone on the side of liberal media blunders.
Lord's view is that the rise of the conservative movement has become woven into the rise of the new media. In short, he means the power is shifting from the hands of the Old Media, i.e., the elitist, culturally and politically mainstream media to a group of folks who not only are effective in some broad fashion politically and culturally, but have the technical means to communicate quickly, research and investigate news and disseminate news they have discovered.
"No longer do we have to follow a model of a handful of liberal reporters and editors clustered in New York and Washington with a select few gathering the news across the country, the editors deciding what the rest of us will see or not see on our TV screens," said Lord. He is looking to conservatives to be the journalists of the New Media, they report and they decide.
Overall, Lord simply does not care what liberals try to control anymore, "Conservatives need to be on the playing field and now we are."
You can find Qube TV at: www.QubeTV.tv
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