Political Public Relations at the DNC with Jason Rosenberg

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Blogger relations advocate Jason Rosenberg, Director of Communications at the Democratic National Convention, discusses his political PR mandate at the Democratic National Convention, setting up the DNC’s online newsroom and establishing the criteria for credentialing online influencers.

Political Public Relations Insights

3:18 – Jason Rosenberg on handling online communications at the Democratic National Convention. He talks about being hired as the second online communications director in the party’s history and working to build the most open convention in the Democratic Party’s history.

4:00 – Jason Rosenberg discusses how he worked on leveraging online newsrooms and other online communications tools so that users could view the convention as if they were present. He talks about the impact of blogging during the convention and the challenges of convincing other communications staffers that bloggers should be credentialed to cover the event.

6:45 – Jason Rosenberg describes the qualification process for selecting bloggers for the national convention. He talks about the two different pools bloggers were selected from and what he looked for in determining a blogger’s credibility.

9:00 – Jason Rosenberg gives his perspective on how the DNC has changed the view of the online community’s role in media relations and discusses whether or not he thinks the DNC’s online newsroom strategy was successful.

He calls on the historical news media to build a business case for blogger relations among senior-level party communications staffers.

12:00 – Jason Rosenberg further describes his goals as director of online communications, using their online newsroom to dis-intermediate the mainstream media’s previous lock on distribution and make the national convention as open as possible.

He talks about how online resources and tools such as Twitter, Flicker, and YouTube helped him accomplish these and other online communications goals.

16:00 – Jason Rosenberg further describes the challenges he faced as director of online communications.

He talks about how he dealt with the difficulties and about the evidence he found that helped convince skeptical national convention lawyers and communications staff that despite potential problems that may arise, the online community and bloggers were “ready to play the game.”

19:55 – Jason Rosenberg discusses the changing dynamics in media relations and how, despite their novelty, blogs are now increasingly accepted and considered as an essential channel for political strategists.

He talks about how the results of the DNC have become instrumental in cementing these changes and why he believes they forever change the future of media relations.

21:17 – End