Embeds on the Campaign Trail

The Wall Street Journal reports today that MSNBC is finding success reaching audiences with multimedia reporters embedded with presidential candidates on the campaign trail. The Journal spotlighted multimedia reporter Felix Schein, who has been embedded since August with the Howard Dean campaign.

Each reporter gets a digital video camera, tripod, and laptop with video editing software. He or she reports for MSNBC and MSNBC.com as a one-man band, a backpack journalist, interviewing and filming candidates, filming his or her own standups, writing Web articles and doing live shots. They also transmit their content over a high-speed Internet connection, usually at the local Starbucks.

“There was clearly a response by viewers to the concept of embedding” reporters in Iraq, says Mark Lukasiewicz, executive producer of NBC’s campaign coverage, to the WSJ. “The part of it we’re applying to the campaigns is having reporters with campaigns with their stories, all the time, living and breathing it.”