TVSquad

My friends, if you thought the coverage that's been going on since the day after the 2006 Congressional election has been overwhelming, you ain't seen nothing yet. Come sunrise on November 4th the television airwaves will be inundated with election coverage, comment, pontification, and general BS. Red states will become blue, blue states will become red, graphs will be drawn on easel boards with black marker and someone will predict the winner of the entire Presidential election at 7:00:01 p.m.

So, if you are wholly disinterested in the old way that the elections are covered you may want to tune into Current TV, or its website if you don't have the channel on your digital box, for an alternative to get the results you need. In this case, it's you, the couch potato that you are, who will be providing the coverage. It's called "Current Diggs the Election" and the way it works will be unique.

Al Gore's citizen video startup Current TV has released the structure of fees it will pay for submitted video segments. I'm not a professional freelancer (but I play one on this and other blogs) but this looks like a pretty generous pay scale. Essentially producers agree to allow Current three months within which to accept or reject submissions. If the spot is accepted, the producer gets paid. If it's rejected the rights revert to the producer who is free to shop it elsewhere. The one hitch for producers I see is that three months is an awfully long time and could mean a segment is so out-of-date by the time rights revert back that selling it elsewhere might be an impossibility. Still, the recognition one could gain with a successful entry could be substantial.