US President Obama and his team seem to be trying to circumvent the traditional White House press corps by directly communicating with "liberal commentators, local reporters and ethnic media," according to Politico, as part of "a much larger strategy" to address more sympathetic audiences. Politico blogger Michael Calderone pointed out that at his second East Room news conference today, the President "skipped over the nation's top newspapers" and took questions from a wider variety of outlets, such as "Spanish-language television, a military news outlet, and black-oriented media."

Obama's decision to call upon a Huffington Post reporter at his first press conference was widely reported, as was the move to give an interview to "progressive" radio host Ed Schultz. Politico also notes White House budget director Peter Orszag took a conference call with liberal-leaning writers on the day Obama released his spending plan; Jared Bernstein, VP Joe Biden's economic adviser also held a call with "friendly" reporters and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has done conference calls with black and Hispanic media outlets. And according to an administration official, Obama plans to meet with liberal bloggers.

This attempt to communicate directly with friendly reporters and therefore a friendly target audience is intended to "escape the filter of an often-sceptical Washington press corps," states Politico, and Obama has an advantage with respect to his predecessors: he can "exploit the fact that traditional newspapers and networks are weakened by competition from cable and the Web, and by a faltering business model." The plethora of blogs and other alternative media sources that have sprung up in the past few years mean that there is much more scope for a president to address specific audiences, and for his message to be widely read. And as Obama was elected, many would argue, with the help of new media sites such as the Huffington Post, it makes sense that he should reward them with interviews.

His team has stressed the administration's desire for transparency, in contrast to its predecessor, and has already shown its desire to communicate more directly with the people through social networking sites such as Facebook. YouTube and Twitter. The refurbished WhiteHouse.gov website claims that Obama has committed to making his administration "the most open and transparent in history," and seems to be in itself a kind of social networking portal. Approaching the people directly has been a strategy in place since the time of Nixon, whose Office of Communications would send out copies of speeches directed to various groups, Politico pointed out, but Obama now has so many more opportunities to do this. Increased transparency is all well and good, but, to quote the Columbia Journalism Review in January, there is a danger that "direct democracy" could veer into "direct publicity," and it is important that the traditional, more cynical media is not put off by the administration's preferences and continues to play its essential role of watchdog.

Source: Politico