City Council Meetings on You Tube! A good idea? Well no, maybe not!

Taney County Web page allows anyone to listen in

At first blush, you’d think this to be a good idea. Perhaps even a great idea. But, after a little time to reflect, some problems begin to show up.

First up, by just having a video camera in the room, taping the entire proceedings could pose problems. Believe it or not, some people could go from ‘open’ mode to ‘quiet’ mode as they realize that everything they say will be later scrutinized by an inquiring public. (Something a politician is all too aware of). It so true that words uttered in casual mode cannot be taken back once those words are recorded and then launched on the internet. End result, the meeting might become stifled.

Another problem (one that can be fixed) is the potential for equipment malfunction where part or most of the recording is lost. This could be corrected in a number of ways. Firstly, taping an entire hour long meeting would require enormous amount of digital space. Also, there’s a problem with YouTube limiting a segment to just ten minutes. You’d need something like six segments to cover just one meeting. Another fly in the ointment would be to try editing out parts of the meeting in order to save time. That would inevitably create a conflict when some would demand to see the parts that were edited out. Bummer.

So, is there any solution that could work? Sure, one thing that could be considered would be to do a ‘live’ podcast in the same manner that Taney County already does for its meetings. In addition, these recordings can be left on that .com’s server for access later on by the public. That would work, but could suffer due to the sheer length. Talk about being bored out of your mind….

My suggestion then would be a twofold approach; One, offer the public the ability to listen in during the live session and two, have someone jot down a condensed version of the significant points that came up during said meeting. (Actually, if a clerk takes the meeting notes, this is already being done). If the notes were made into a .pdf file, it would be a simple matter to link each summary text to a newsletter whereby each session would be accessible at any time and by anyone.

Just a thought….