Hedrick's rant at Baird health care forum goes viral

The columbian ^

[Bean Counter]

Wednesday, August 26 | 8:00 a.m.

BY KATHIE DURBIN COLUMBIAN STAFF WRITER

Former Marine David Hedrick of Camas has become an instant conservative media celebrity after attacking U.S. Rep. Brian Baird and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at Baird's Aug. 18 health care town hall in Ridgefield.

A video clip of Hedrick's comments and the raucous response that greeted them, taken from a columbian.com multimedia piece, has gone viral on the Internet, receiving more than 450,000 views on YouTube.

*SNIP*

Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.

[Bean Counter]

I know that Free Republic has been celebrating the words of young Marine David Hedrick in his video confronting Brian Baird.

I wanted you all to know exactly how his hometown newspaper has characterized that video, and that they just got around to mentioning it at all. I think the only reason they put this up is because the National Media has given it so much positive attention.

I want to also note that Kathy Durbin is the hired gun at the columbian, and has never missed an opportunity to mischaracterize or slam a Republican, or perceived Conservative on behalf of her employers at the paper. Her poison pen is legendary here in town as is her silence about anything that might make a local Democrat even mildly uncomfortable.

Nobody else has referred to this as a "rant" until now.

[Bean Counter]

In addition, the phrase “going viral” is a reference to “viral marketing” and implies there is some high tech, organized effort to distribute this video, even though there is absolutely no evidence of that at all.

This stuff goes on all the time out here, and it frankly makes me sick.

[NavyCanDo]

If you have not seen it yet, you got to watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rRE5UK6NQU

My father-in-law, who is a Dentist has been showing this to some of his patients. They loved it and asked for the web site.

[Bean Counter]

Did anyone of them think this was “a rant” or describe it’s popularity as “going viral”??

Seriously, is it just me that takes offense at things like this?? Am I just being hyper-critical here??

[Bean Counter]

The following just got posted at the website of the hometown newspaper of David Hedrick...where could all of those phonecalls have come from??

Pinging Washington and Oregon...

http://columbian.com/article/20090828/NEWS02/708299996/Press+Talk++Was+Hedrick+front-page+news?

Friday, August 28 | 9:49 a.m.

A huge number of comments have appeared under our story of Camas resident David Hedrick — a former marine who confronted Congressman Brian Baird at a recent town hall meeting. Most of those comments have dealt with Hedrick and what he said.

But many e-mails and phone calls that have come into The Columbian have addressed whether the Hedrick story should have been a story at all, especially a front page story. Saturday’s Press Talk column will address those e-mails and phone calls. But on Saturday, see it only in The Columbian print edition.

Lou Brancaccio is The Columbian’s editor. Reach him at 360-735-4505 or lou.brancaccio@columbian.com.

[sionnsar]

Thanks to Bean Counter for the ping.

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[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

schweet!!!

[freedomlover]

Maybe I am behind the curve, but I interpret “going viral” as the complete opposite of organized effort. It multiplies purely on its own, not due to some structured marketing effort. Sure some marketing efforts can replicate this if they are lucky, but more often than not it’s the unexpected ugly lady with the great voice or the unexpected squirrel in the snapshot that “go viral” in the purest form (IMHO).

Now the “rant” mischaracterization I agree with.