Our President is Wired (and Wireless)

Apologies to fans of West of the West Wing for a lack of postings last week. Busy week!

Last Thursday, President Obama went where no President had gone before. He hosted the White House’s first Presidential on-line question and answer session with the American people. The media were the quiet ones on the sidelines of the Roosevelt Room.

The White House solicited questions from American’s on-line and then boiled down some of the possible 100,000 questions from more than 92,000 questioners. In order to allow everyone a chance to feel they could be heard, the final cut of questions was made by an on-line vote and millions of people participated. More than 64,000 people went on-line to watch the event, live.

President Obama becomes the first President to fully embrace the power of the Internet and new media as powerful tools in his communication arsenal. The use of these new tools were honed during the 2008 Presidential Campaign and not abandoned once the White House was achieved.

The President and his team are still trying to find the best ways to employ direct communication to achieve results for their broad legislative objectives, but it is clear the President is comfortable with his ability to participate and use every means available for unfiltered and direct communication.

Presidential pioneers include President Theodore Roosevelt that fully understood and utilized print media to achieve his goals; President Franklin Roosevelt utilized broadcast radio for his messages and became the first broadcast media President. President Kennedy used television to both win the White House and used it successfully to foster his agenda. Taking that lead, Presidents Reagan and Clinton both honed the use of television as a way to successfully communicate directly with the American public. President Clinton was the first President to begin using the Internet as well.

The difference with president Obama is his ability to fully use a communication tool that is completely unfiltered. President’s can appear on television and radio in direct addresses to the public. Those broadcasts are limited due to the impact of the loss of commercial airtime to the commercial network providers of the broadcasts. Those broadcasts often include commentary by television news hosts and interviews with Congressional members or others having opposing views.

Live Presidential press conferences give Presidents the opportunity to deliver their specific messages, however it also allows reporters to question the President on any other issue and the focus can shift due to those questions and answers away from the message the President wanted to deliver.

The Internet, e-mail and other on-line events allow for an almost complete managing of the message coming from the White House directly to those watching, listening and reading. There is still a lot of refinement about how to do this best, how to measure results and how much is too much.

Regardless, a new communication frontier has been crossed and hopefully will bring a new era of citizen involvement and hopefully participation in the governing of the country.