While members of the White House Press Corps, like Ana Marie Cox, are able to live-Tweet official pressers and Sen. John McCain, among others, can give you updates from the Senate floor, those who work inside the White House on “company” computers don’t have access to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or any of the other social media outlets. Why? Yes, for security reasons but also because of the Presidential Records Act.
That’s not keeping the White House out of the mix, though. President Obama is encouraging the federal government to reach out to Americans via the Web and has created a “new media team.” Soon, you might even see the president’s speeches available on iTunes.
The first tweet the White House Twittered was not about the weather. It had nothing to do with how the President was feeling, what he was doing or what he wanted for lunch. The First Dog, Bo, failed to receive even an oblique mention.Instead, the Obama Administration jumped with both feet into the 140-character Twitterverse on May 1 with a one-sentence post on how Americans can learn about swine flu directly by joining social networks with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “We wanted to use these tools to some end, some effect, some public good,” said Macon Phillips, the White House Director of New Media.
Read the rest of this TIME Magazine article here and, for further reading, “The White House’s Low Tech Secret” from TIME‘s Swampland blog.
Then, check out the official White House Flickr stream.
Here are the photos from the “Trilateral: US-Afghanistan-Pakistan” set:
This article appears in May 5-12, 2009.
