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March 26, 2008

D.B. Cooper's open parachute found?; Spot Runner offers TV ads to local candidates for $499

The chute found near Amboy, Wash. (map)

FBI: Found parachute may be D.B. Cooper's* , from KOMO TV, Seattle, with video and a surprisingly long text story (for TV site). Here's how it happened:

the parachute, which was recently dug up by the children of a Clark County farmer in the area where the mysterious skyjacker likely landed, has raised new questions.

"It's fragile to the touch, and it's obviously been in the ground for some time," agent Larry Carr said of the canvas.

Children playing outside their home near Amboy found the chute sticking up from the ground this month in an area where their father had been grading a road.

Carr says they pulled on the fabric as much as they could, then cut the parachute's ropes with scissors. They had seen recent media coverage on the D.B. Cooper case and urged their dad to call the FBI.

The FBI in Seattle is taking it seriously:

The FBI is now reevaluating the case and looking for people who had experience parachuting in the 1970s to help identify the chute.

Those who wish to contact investigators can do so on the FBI's Web site.

(*D.B. who?

"The man calling himself Dan Cooper, also known as D.B. Cooper, boarded a Northwest flight in Portland for a flight to Seattle on the night of Nov, 24, 1971, and commandeered the plane, claiming he had dynamite.

"In Seattle, he demanded and got $200,000 and four parachutes and demanded to be flown to Mexico. Somewhere over southwestern Washington, he jumped out of the plane's tail exit with two of the chutes and the money strapped to his body. He was never seen again, alive or dead.")

Head start: Internet ad agency Spot Runner is offering video templates to help local candidates make TV ads for as little as $499 --and TV crews if they need to shoot new footage of the candidate.

It's a laudable attempt at lowering the barriers to participation for at least some candidates who can't afford the exposure that will attract interest and donations.

Their Political division has all the details.

TechCrunch reports (Just In Time For Campaign Season, Spot Runner Gets Into Politics),

To start with, Spot Runner has created 22 generic ad templates that can be further modified, which cover issues ranging from taxes and education to immigration and leadership. Campaigns add video images of the candidate and tweak the script any way they like. Spot Runner will record the voiceovers. And if new footage needs to be shot of the candidate on the campaign trail or working hard in Congress, Spot Runner can supply the camera crew (in January it purchased GlobeShooters, a network of about 1,500 video professionals).

And then when it comes time to pick where to show the ads, Spot Runner has developed a sophisticated media map of the U.S. that lets campaigns target ads by age, gender, income levels, voter affiliations, and even history of campaign contributions. A campaign manager can choose to run the seniors ad in older neighborhoods and the education reform ads in neighborhoods with a lot of young families. Spot Runner also lets campaigns create fund raising ads that can be e-mailed to supporters.

Here are the 22 ads they'll customize for that price.

To ease the move from business to political spots, Spot Runner assembled a political advisory board: "Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ) and political strategists Mike Murphy, Dan Schnur, and Robert Shrum."

After a while, we'll probably be comparing how well candidates customize easily recognizable Spot Runner ads -- especially if competing candidates run spots using the same template. Cable TV especially could be rife with these.

   

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:26 AM | Permalink