Citizen Kate

Citizen Kate is a web series and video blog about Citizen Kate Soglin, a young "citizen journalist," who gives the outsider’s view of inside politics. Citizen Kate was one of the first Citizen Journalists to hit the 2008 presidential campaign trail. She started her video blog coverage on February 10, 2007 at Barack Obama's announcement to run for president in Springfield, Illinois. She has filed several vblogs about the presidential campaign and politics on her web site CitizenKate.tv since.

When the Butter Head of Barack Obama became a national story, jokingly cited by Keith Olberman on his show "Countdown" for MSNBC as the reason behind his last minute bump in the polls, no one credited Citizen Kate for both coming up with the idea for Duffy Lyon "the Butter Lady of Iowa" and for paying for the sculpture. Citizen Kate proceeded to air the video on her website CitizenKate.tv seed blogs and send notes to reporters asking to be credited. Only Screen Magazine credited her.

Her quest to meet Obama and find out what it takes to be a "Great Leader" landed her on , a site created by Jeff Jarvis, covering the YouTube Campaign 2008. The site identified Citizen Kate as the first Obama stalker, which led to a mention of her in the Chicago Tribune on February 26, 2007. The Tribune story was also picked up by The Economist Global Technology Forum.^[1] In April 2007, YouTube's CitizenTube editor highlighted Citizen Kate's "crush" on Obama and demonstration of "serious pluck" in the YouTube Staff Picks of the Week.^[2] People have described Citizen Kate as "half valley girl, half Michael Moore", legally blonde, a "YouTube Hottie", an enterprising reporter, and funny.^[3][4][5]

Without any experience in either politics or reporting, Citizen Kate attends political events, where she talks with senators, delegates, and presidential candidates in order to uncover the political process. She caught the attention of the media when she attended the 2007 California Democratic Convention in San Diego, where she interviewed Senator Chris Dodd and asked Senator John Edwards a question during his press conference.^[6] When Kate asked Edwards for a job, he appeared visibly nervous. The resemblance to his alleged mistress was striking - blond, leopard print headband, party girl, with video camera.

Citizen Kate also publishes her News & Politics videos on YouTube, along with a written blog about her experience on MySpace. Veoh, the original distributors of the Prom Queen web series, features Citizen Kate on their site each week and launched the first Citizen Kate Channel.

Background

Citizen Kate, real name Kate Soglin, hails from Chicago, Illinois. She speaks Spanish and loves shoes. She stands by her key message and platform of "Peace and Hugs". Her major concern is the environment, and founded the small environmental organization, Friends with Trees. Soglin first interviewed Illinois Senator Dick Durbin at Barack Obama's presidential announcement.^[7] She caught the attention of the Illinois Lieutenant Governor and shook hands with him at Rich Miller's Capitol Fax Blog Party the night before Obama's announcement.^[4] And the Mayor of Springfield, Illinois, Tim Davlin, was the first mayor to kiss Citizen Kate's cheek.^[8]

There's just one thing. Citizen Kate is the made-up character portrayed by improv actress and writer, Julia Saboda. Citizen Kate was created by Carey Lundin and produced by Julia Saboda, Chris Peppey, Carey Lundin and Michael Perri.

Other notable facts

• On October 3, 2008, Fox News Chicago Citizen Kate goes toe to toe with Chicago's toughest political newsman, Fox News Chicago's Jack Conaty.

• On August 9, 2008, on Edwards and a blond.

• On February 17, 2007, prezvid.com first reported on Citizen Kate and called her an Obama stalker.

• On February 27, 2007, The Economist Global Technology Forum mentioned Citizen Kate as an original online video campaign focused on the presidential trail when they republished an article from the Chicago Tribune.

• On April 5, 2007, Cynthia Turner's Cynopsis featured CitizenKate.tv as the "Website of the Day" commenting that Kate Soglin is "making noise" and acts "half Michael Moore" with her vblog.

• On April 13, 2007, Citizen Kate was one of the YouTube Staff Picks of the Week.

• On April 30, 2007, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Citizen Kate stole the show with her vigor and excitement during the John Edwards Press Conference at the California Democratic Convention.

• On May 3, 2007, Total Buzz, The insiders' hotline to Orange County government and politics, mentioned Citizen Kate and her assets.

• On May 4, 2007, prezvid.com noted that Citizen Kate charmed Senator Dodd and all candidates should let her "stalk them".

• On May 7, 2007, The O'Reilly Digital Media Blog featured Citizen Kate as a blogger who embodied young citizens and poked fun at the self-importance of Big Media. It took about nine seconds of that blog posting for The LA Times Political Muscle Blog to blog about that blog and uncover Citizen Kate as a citizen journalist.

• On May 16, 2007, Save the Robot by Chris Dahlen mentioned Citizen Kate's "Rocketboobs" in his article about the success of amateur entertainment online.

• On May 18, 2007, Screen Magazine published the first interview with Citizen Kate titled "Reporting For Duty: What One Woman Is Doing With A Pair Of Juicy Couture Shoes, A Camera And A Dream".

• On May 24, 2007, Politics Anyone? on Bakersfield.com sparked a conversation about Citizen Kate being the future of political journalism, calling her a "YouTube hottie" and "enterprising free-lance reporter".

• On June 9, 2007, The Daily Kos notes that Citizen Kate got a surprisingly candid interview with Senator Chris Dodd.

• On June 27, 2007, The Washington Post described Senator Chris Dodd as charmed and relaxed with Kate.

• On June 29, 2007, The Press Enterprise of Southern California noted that Kate is a blogger helping to rewrite the political rules.

• On July 10, 2007, PrezVid notes that the plucky Citizen Kate strikes out asking Hillary Clinton a question.

• On July 15, 2007, TV Week called Citizen Kate a new way to hit unwired network viewers.

References

External links

• Official Citizen Kate Website