Washington - Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) and political news site Politico announced that on Tuesday they will offer the first online video interview with President George W. Bush from the White House.

San Francisco - FORA.tv, a video site that specializes in political and cultural content, has raised $4 million in its first round of funding, from Adobe Ventures, William Randolph Hearst III and others, Beet.TV reported.

Los Angeles - SaysMe, a service that lets consumers create and purchase TV advertising, has raised an undisclosed sum in its first round of financing, led by Intel Capital and Prime Capital.

Los Angeles - News Corp.'s MySpace (NYSE: NWS) and NBC (NYSE: GE) News on Tuesday launched Decision '08, a new section on MySpace's IMPACT Channel that will feature in-depth election-related news, analysis and discussion. The site offers news feeds and daily videos from NBC News and MSNBC.com, as well as user-generated content from MySpace.

Palo Alto, Calif. - Stanford Law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig has decided against a run for Congress, after talking with a pollster who advised him his chances of winning would be slim, Wired.com reports. Lessig said last week on his website that he was considering a run for the seat vacated by the death of Rep. Tom Lantos earlier this month. The pollster told Lessig he would not likely be able to defeat veteran California politician Jackie Speier, who had already announced her intention to run for Lantos' seat -- and gotten Lantos' endorsement as well.

Palo Alto, Calif. - Lawrence Lessig, the noted Stanford law professor, copyright expert and founder of the Creative Commons less-restrictive copyright scheme, is considering a run for Congress, CNET reports, citing a note on Lessig's blog. If he decides to run, Lessig would be vying for the seat vacated by the death last week of Rep. Tom Lantos. Lessig says he would run on a "Change Congress" theme, that includes banning lobbyist/PAC contributions and legislative earmarks, and moving to public campaign financing. "I need to see your support right now to understand there is enough support for this idea to make this campaign worth it," Lessig states in a video at Lessig08.org.

New York - Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) MTV said this week that it will send a team of citizen journalists to cover elections in Super Tuesday primary states, who will stream live video broadcasts throughout the day via mobile phones to its MTVNews.com and ChooseorLose.com sites. The citizen journalists will be equipped with Nokia N95 mobile devices, which will capture video that will then be streamed live onto the Web using technology from Flixwagon.

St. Paul, Minn. - Ustream.TV has been tapped to provide the official live video webcast of the 2008 Republican National Convention. In addition to "gavel-to-gavel" coverage of the event, convention and other Republican officials will be scheduled to participate in live video Web chats and other online interviews that will be broadcast via Ustream.TV's platform.

Washington - The Digital Media Association (DiMA), which represents the interests of large webcasters including AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo, has hired Greg Barnes, former senior counsel to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, to become the association's legislative counsel and director of government affairs. "We look forward to having Greg on board as we continue to help digital media companies achieve a regulatory and business environment that supports industry growth, creative and technological innovation and greater consumer enjoyment of digital content," DiMA executive director Jonathan Potter.

Cincinnati - Scripps (NYSE: SSP), the owner of newspapers, local TV stations and cable networks including HGTV and Food Network, announced on Wednesday the launch of a social networking site that aims to be a "forum for diverse political and cultural ideas and opinion." RedBlueAmerica.com will include user-generated content, blogs, videos and other typical features.

New York - CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS) said on Wednesday that it has partnered with news aggregation site Digg to provide reciprocal links and content during the 2008 election. Digg's election headlines will receive placement on CBSNews.com, while buttons that add a story to Digg's service will be placed alongside CBSNews.com content.

Hong Kong – With nearly 20% of the world’s population and one of the fastest growing economies, China’s decision today to restrict internet video to state-run companies is sure to have a large impact on the strategic thinking of digital media content providers everywhere. The AP reports that the new regulations will begin on January 31, and were approved by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television, and the Ministry of Information Industry.

When David Letterman’s The Late Show returns to regular programming tonight with its writers in tow, the first guest in the post-strike era will be Robin Williams. Industry observers had questioned the caliber of guests that talk shows would receive, and it was believed that Donald Trump would be Letterman’s first guest. But the Screen Actors Guild said it supported the appearance of its members on shows like Letterman’s after the Writers Guild of America approved of the strike stoppage for Worldwide Pants writers, the production company for The Late Show and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Beginning next Wednesday, January 2nd, writers for CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman and Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson will return to work after 8 weeks on strike, the AP writes. The Writers Guild of America came to an interim agreement with Worldwide Pants, the production company for both shows owned by Letterman. "I am grateful to the WGA for granting us this agreement," the AP quoted Letterman as saying.

Celebrity support for presidential candidates is nothing new, nor is the negative impact such support can often garner. It has led some of the 2008 candidates to form looser ties with celebrities than in years past, but one celebrity and her choice for president – Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama – have formed a bond in the last several months that would lead observers to question whether the two are considering a Prez-VP run at the Oval Office.

The New York Times blog known as The Medium posted a potentially disastrous article about Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul on Monday, and today an editor recanted much of the information. The article begins, “Ron Paul, our Internet president, seems to have Nazi troubles, as in they’re saying he’s one of them.” Stormfront, which the blog calls “a ‘white nationalist’ Internet community,” donated money to Paul, according to The Medium, something the editor’s note now says is untrue. However, Stormfront’s founder, Don Black, did donate $500 to the campaign.

Following the leads of Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman, and Craig Ferguson, Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert, host of The Colbert Report, will resume their shows on January 7th, according to NoFactZone. The shows had been on hold since the WGA strike began on November 5th, and will return without their writers, who are expected to still be striking at that time. Comedy Central released the following statement:

New York - Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) MTV on Thursday announced that it has recruited 51 citizen journalists to cover the 2008 elections from a youth perspective, and tailor their reports for mobile devices. Members will contribute weekly, multimedia reports in the form of video clips, blogs, animation, photos and podcasts, which will be distributed via a soon-to-launch WAP site, MTV Mobile, Think.MTV.com and to the more than 1,800 sites in the Associated Press Online Video Network.