James Kotecki, a.k.a. EmergencyCheese on YouTube, is likely a well-known personality for this crowd. And James' appeal as a citizen journalist and YouTube "guru," dispatching his advice to candidates on how best to connect with the YouTube community, has doled up its fair-share of press from the mainstream media.

But now, James... is the mainstream media. At least, sort of. And its his experience jumping from "Citizen Journalist" to "Journalist" that I wanted to include in this space through an email interview with James.

The quick background is that James went to the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa as a paid freelancer for one of our favorite stops, the Politico.com. You can see all of the products of his experience on his YouTube channel.

Find the interview after the jump.

In episode six of DomeNation, Jerome and I talk to MSM bloggers Paul Kane (WashingtonPost.com) and Jonathan Martin (politico.com) to see how technology is changing the political reporting biz.

As always, please visit YouTube to rate or leave a comment, and please share the video with your facebook, myspace, and twitter network. It only takes a minute.

A tipster passes this event along which might interest you DC-types:

"Politics 2008: How Citizen and New Media Affect the Press and the Presidential Campaign" will be a roundtable panel discussion. Panelists are: Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com; Jim VandeHei, executive editor of The Politico; Pulitzer Prize winner Haynes Johnson, Knight Chair in Journalism at the Merrill College; and Susan Page, Washington bureau chief of USA Today. The panel will be moderated by Merrill Dean Tom Kunkel.

The event is Thursday (June 7) at 6:45 p.m. in the Holman Lounge of the National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C. RSVP to shyoung@umd.edu.