Friday, November 14, 2008

Obama to give first YouTube Radio Address

WE'VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

Another example of Obama taking the Presidency into the 21st Century

Today, President-elect Obama will record the Weekly Democratic Radio Address on video and radio. The address will be turned into a youtube video which we will post on www.change.gov when the embargo ends on Saturday. The audio portion will still be distributed as it normally is. President-elect Obama will continue to record and make available the Democratic radio addresses on video when he is in the White House. No President-elect or President has ever turned the radio address into a multi-media opportunity before. This is just one of many ways that President-elect Obama will communicate directly with the American people and make the White House and the political process more transparent.
Washington Post writer Jose Antonio Vargas wrote a story on the radio/video address

The YouTube Presidency

By Jose Antonio Vargas
The White House has gone YouTube.

Today, President-elect Obama will record the weekly Democratic address not just on radio but also on video -- a first. The address, typically four minutes long, will be turned into a YouTube video and posted on Obama's transition site, Change.gov, once the radio address is made public on Saturday morning.

The address will be taped at the transition office in Chicago today.

"This is just one of many ways that he will communicate directly with the American people and make the White House and the political process more transparent," spokeswoman Jen Psaki told us last night.

In addition to regularly videotaping the radio address, officials at the transition office say the Obama White House will also conduct online Q&As and video interviews. The goal, officials say, is to put a face on government. In the following weeks, for example, senior members of the transition team, various policy experts and choices for the Cabinet, among others, will record videos for Change.gov.

Yesterday, transition co-chairman Valerie Jarrett recorded a two-minute video that summarized the goings-on in the past week. "President-elect Obama adopted the most sweeping and strict ethics rules that have ever been in place in the course of a transition," said a bespectacled Jarrett, looking directly at the camera in a video that's yet to be posted. -MORE-

Vargas interviewed me at the start of the convention in August. My boss still doesn't know (I think).