The gracious folks from one.org have procured 10 backstage press passes to each of 5 of the following Live 8 concerts - Philadelphia, Paris, Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo. The folks at one.org and Live 8 believe that bloggers can help to shape the media and bring a new voice and perspective - and help to set the agenda - before the G8 conference in Scotland. (BTW, check out their new blog.

In addition, Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines has donated his airplane to fly the Live 8 crew from New York to Edinburgh and back, and up to five bloggers will be given the opportunity to fly to Edinburgh and back with the Live 8 group. The idea is to blog the trip, including the beginning of the G8 summit. The flight departs from JFK in New York at 7 p.m. on July 3; the same airplane will bring the bloggers and whoever else back to New York on July 7. Lodging in or near Edinburgh will also be provided.

So, here's what's up: This is a call to bloggers to give all of you the opportunity to get one of these backstage passes, and possibly on the flight to Edinburgh. Think of all the cool stuff you can do - set up a podcast and interview the bands, make a great photoblog, videoblog it, heck maybe you can end up playing air guitar in front of millions, who knows?

Seriously, the goal of this is also to get millions of bloggers posting about Live 8 - the fact is that there are 30,000 children dying in Africa every day - no one is reporting on it, and we aren't doing anything about it. So one of the goals is to help set the agenda of the mainstream media, and this represents a moment of pregnant possibility - for bloggers to create proactive change, not just reactive change based on other news events. It is our opportunity to help to shape the news conversation for the good of us all. And for our leaders to hear the voices of millions when they sit down at the G8 meeting.

So, here's what you need to do:

Go to one.org and watch the video and sign the declaration. Get up to speed on what Live8 is all about.
Go to live8.technorati.com and put one of the badges on your blog. It is pretty easy to do, you just need to add the code on the badge page to your weblog template.
Go and read the posts about Live8 on Joe Trippi's blog and on Powerline - this is a nonpartisan effort.
Pick the show that's nearest to you - and send an email to me, Joe, and to John with the following information:
1. Your name and age
2. Your blog name and URL
3. Which show you want to go to (please only pick one show), and
4. Your snail mail address (so we know where to send the show packets)
Go and blog about Live 8, and tag your posts with the Live 8 tag (instructions on how to do this are here). You've got to put the badge up on your blog and have posted at least once about Live 8 with the tag to get selected.
Keep an eye on your mailbox. Given the incredible time crunch, we'll let you know what's up no later than Thursday June 30th.
Tell all your friends. The goal here is to get 100,000 blog posts out before the G8 summit, and to get as many people out there blogging about Live 8, third world debt relief, the plight of the hungry and poor everywhere and what we can do about it.

There may be additional credentials that we can get from the Live 8 people, and Joe, John, and I are going to work our butts off to get credentials for the other shows as well, including Toronto and the shows in Great Britain. More to come. In the meantime, please go out and listen, read, and blog - together perhaps we can help to shift the conversation, and influence country policies to help to make poverty history.

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