YouTube.com John Edwards announced his 2008 presidential candidacy on YouTube. "Not a journalistic platform" -- but so what?

Three comments caught my attention in Howard Kurtz's Jan. 8 media column item about online political coverage in the Washington Post.

The first one involves an overriding theme of the political journalism course I teach at George Mason University in collaboration with C-SPAN, the Cable Center, the University of Denver and Pace University: The Macaca Moment was just a precursor of what we can expect to see in online coverage of the 2008 presidential election. That campaign is "totally going to be on steroids this time in terms of what a candidate can do," said Joe Trippi in Kurtz's column.

Trippi was the consultant behind Howard Dean's Internet initiatives in 2003 and 2004. "You're going to see reality, and you're going to see savvy manipulation under the guise of something that's authentic and real." Adds Trippi to Kurtz: "If you get caught, you're dead."

Second, in an age when everyone is a publisher, according to Mathew Gross, former John Edwards' Internet strategist for the former senator's 2008 presidential campaign, "We live in a world in which everybody has the power to capture and then broadcast." It's a football coach's ideal universe, and most if not all politicians, like football coaches, are control freaks.

Finally, Kurtz notes that the Edwards' campaign has hired Andrew Baron, who created the satirical news site Rocketboom.com. Baron provides advice and shot Edwards's announcement video, "which was posted on YouTube the night before the candidate personally declared his candidacy in New Orleans." Baron told Kurtz that Rocketboom "is not a journalistic platform" and sets its own ethical standards. By extension, does that mean that Edwards is setting his own ethical standards online as well?

Stay tuned. The campaign has hardly started!