Slate, the Industry Standard, and washingtonpost.com join forces to examine the effect of the Internet on Campaign 2000.
The Internet was supposed to play a major role at this year’s Republican and Democratic National Conventions. But has the online medium found a successful partner in politics? As always, a look at the numbers offers an insight on the real story.
1. Number of press credentials granted for the Democratic National Convention: 15,000
2. Number of online media companies at the convention: 42
3. Number of print, TV, and radio companies at the convention: 125
4. Total price tag for the Democratic National Convention: $35.3 million
5. Amount of corporate new economy contributions to the Democratic convention: $3,250,000
6. TV company that dedicated the most time to the Democratic National Convention, and time dedicated: C-SPAN; 30 hours, 39 minutes
7. TV company that dedicated the least time to the Democratic National Convention, and time dedicated: NBC; 3 hours, 15 minutes
8. Most heavily visited nonpartisan political site from Aug. 14-17: vote.com
9. Total unique visitors to vote.com during those four days: 52,905
10. Number of nonpartisan political Web sites that made Nielsen NetRatings’ traffic count cutoff of 51,000 daily unique visitors: 1
11. Number of major newspaper stories about online media’s coverage of the two party conventions: 60
12. Number of Internet media stories about print coverage of the Democratic National Convention: 0
13. Percentage of Internet users in a sample of approximately 100 who logged on to find convention coverage on Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention, and the average time they spent watching online: just more than 1 percent; 10 minutes
14. Number of people in the sample of 100 who went to a convention chat room on Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention: 0
15. Number of speakers at the Democratic National Convention who said the word “Internet” in their speeches: 11
16. Number of speakers at the Democratic National Convention who said “new economy” in their speeches: 3
17. Length of Vice President Al Gore’s speech: 44 minutes, 5,740 words
18. Length of President Clinton’s speech: 42 minutes, 4,201 words
19. Length of Tipper Gore’s speech: 13 minutes (including video), 322 words (excluding video)
20. Length of first lady Hillary Clinton’s speech: 18 minutes, 1,714 words
Sources
1. Washington Post
2. National Journal Convention Daily
3. National Journal Convention Daily
4. Washington Post
5. Center for Responsive Politics
6. C-SPAN
7. C-SPAN
8. Nielsen NetRatings
9. Nielsen NetRatings
10. Nielsen NetRatings
11. Lexis-Nexis search
12. Google search
13. Vanishing Voter Project
14. Vanishing Voter Project
15. C-SPAN
16. C-SPAN
17. SpeakOut.com, Associated Press (transcription by eMediaMillWorks)
18. SpeakOut.com, www.dems2000.com
19. SpeakOut.com, www.dems2000.com
20. SpeakOut.com, Associated Press (transcription by eMediaMillWorks)