Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog » Barack Obama

Barack Obama on Twitter and Chinese internet censorship

Judith Townend — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:56:25 +0000

Barack Obama answered questions on internet censorship and Twitter in his (live-streamed) talk to Chinese students yesterday:

ReadWriteWeb was shocked to learn that Obama has ‘never used Twitter.’ It turns out that someone else in his office is responsible for the 2.6 million followers… “But I’m an advocate of technology and not restricting internet access,” Obama said.

Meanwhile, the UK nationals have picked up his comments on internet censorship. The Times, for example:

Mr Obama was asked whether he knew of the ‘Great Firewall’ – the popular term for the blocks that China’s Government imposes on the internet to keep out content its censors deem inappropriate for its citizens. Mr Obama said: “I have always been a strong supporter of open internet use. I am a big supporter of non-censorship. I recognise that different countries have different traditions.”

It was the answer in which he came the closest to subtle criticism of his hosts, saying he believed the freedom to reprove a country’s leaders helped to strengthen democracy. “I should be honest, there are times when I wish information didn’t flow so freely, then I wouldn’t have to listen to people criticise me all the time. People naturally when in positions of power think ‘How could that person say that of me? That’s irresponsible’.”

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‘Jackass’ tweet raises question of on and off-the-record

Judith Townend — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:23:02 +0000

Kanye West has apologised (at least four times) to Taylor Swift for interrupting her acceptance speech at the MTV VMAs to tell the crowd that Beyoncé should have got it, while ABC News has apologised for one its reporters tweeting about an ‘off-the-record portion’ of an interview between another television network and President Obama.

Too late really: the audio is out there thanks to TMZ and the tweet sent by Terry Moran had already done the rounds:

“Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a ‘jackass’ for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.”

Yes, hold the front page of the website (and they are) Barack Obama called Kanye West a jackass.

Politico reports an apology made by an ABC spokesperson:

“In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview.

“This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong. We apologise to the White House and CNBC and are taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again.”

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AfricaNews: Obama praises Ghanaian investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas for risking life to report the truth

Judith Townend — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:06:51 +0000

“US President Barack Obama paid tribute to Ghanaian ace investigative journalist and AfricaNews’ reporter Anas Aremeyaw Anas for his selfless work towards humanity. Obama said the democratic dispensation in Ghana is worth emulating across the continent to boost press freedom and governance,” Africa News reports.

Full story at this link…

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Obama’s first 100 days: how the web is covering it

Laura Oliver — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:08:52 +0000

Some great multimedia coverage as US President Barack Obama completes his first 100 days in power.

The Washington Post has set up a ’special package’ to mark the day – complete with videos, more than 300 photos arranged by topic (see below) and an interactive timeline of the period – with symbols marking the days key legislation was introduced.

(The Post has used Daylife previously to organise its photos – for example during the Olympics last year – so I’m wondering whether that’s the case here too.)

Similarly, the LA Times has its own 100 days site with the emphasis on readers’ views. The Times asked commuters for their video thoughts on Obama’s progress so far.

What I like in particular about this effort is the ability to filter videos by policy and the interactive calendar that dominates the top of the page – click on any date from the 100 for more information.

It’s a very clean layout with a nice feed of LA Times’ related articles too.

The White House is getting in on the act too with its own Flickr group of images depicting the start of the presidency.

Any more good examples of coverage?

UPDATE April 30:

Am reliably informed by Daylife that they’re not behind the Times’ photos – it’s being done internally – but their technology has had a hand in the Wall Street Journal’s coverage, which pulls together video, relevant articles, images and create interactive graphics.

Also enjoyed Slate highlighting the 100 days on Obama’s Facebook feed.

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More Telegraph and Twitterfall – spreads to topic pages

Laura Oliver — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:59:21 +0000

Further to our blog post on Friday about Telegraph.co.uk’s use of Twitterfall to aggregate tweets around live football match reports, the app is being used on the site’s Barack Obama page:

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DNA09: Who made Obama President – More the candidate than the campaign?

Laura Oliver — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:31:11 +0000

Much has been made of Barack Obama’s use of new media to mobilise voters and generate microdonations to support his presidential campaign.

Speaking at today’s Digital News Affairs 2009 (DNA) Jodi Williams, press lead for the Obama Campaign, explained the team’s use of the internet as a tool to connect people ‘who otherwise wouldn’t have been connected’.

This meant building a presence for Obama on social networks, coordinating online donation schemes and collecting information on potential voters so that directions to polling stations and offers of transport could be made via text on voting day.

Many of the techniques could be applied to Europe for candidates in the forthcoming European Parliament elections, particularly because of deeper broadband presentation, added Williams.

Really? Could Obama’s campaign have been as successful without that key component – the candidate himself. Is there anyone in European politics who inspires the same debate/feeling/mass participation?

Fortunately Stephen Clark, representing the European Parliament on the panel, conceded this point:

“It can’t be denied that it [Obama's campaign] was about candidate and political situation at that time.

“It’s very difficult to find a political figure known across Europe. In a parliamentary system perhaps the issues are the way to go.”

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Editor&Publisher: Obama book to fund new journalism scholarship programme

Judith Townend — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:44:10 +0000

From the Editor&Publisher: “The Poynter Institute has announced a new tuition scholarship program that is funded through proceeds from a new book of front pages about Barack Obama’s election and inauguration.

“The program will make available a limited number of tuition subsidies worth up to $500 for participants of select 2009 on-site seminars, a release stated.”

Full story at this link…

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Obama’s digital guru (aka Thomas Gensemer) at City: “Email is still the killer app”

Judith Townend — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:51:18 +0000

Obama digital campaign ‘guru,’ Thomas Gensemer, has attracted a fair bit of attention with his arrival in London – check out the Guardian G2 feature and this article at TimesOnline, for example. A Guardian video can be watched here at this link.

Gensemer, whose company Blue State Digital built the Obama website and managed the online campaign, was also speaking at City University on Tuesday evening: at an event entitled ‘Obama’s (not so) Secret Weapon: the role of the internet in the 2008 US Presidential Election’.

His talk officially launched the journalism school’s new MA in Political Campaigning and Reporting. A video of the event can be watched here.

Etan Smallman was at the event, and shares his report with us here:

Plain old-fashioned email is the key tool for successful political campaigning in the digital age, the mastermind behind the Obama digital campaign, Thomas Gensemer, told an audience at City University this week.

Thomas Gensemer, managing partner of Blue State Digital, who built the highly acclaimed online operation, dismissed the impact of social networking in favour of ‘the simplicity of email’.

The message is ‘use tools, not gimmicks’, Gensemer said. “For all the talk of social networking, blogs, and mobile applications, email is still the ‘killer app’. Our email list of 13.5 million individual email subscribers was the backbone of the campaign,” he added.

“This is not a story about technology; this is not a story about Facebook or Twitter. This is about dynamic, personalised, two-way relationship via email,” he said. Gensemer said that more than a billion emails were sent out to over 13.5 million email subscribers throughout Obama’s presidential campaign. It resulted in my.barackobama.com raising half a billion dollars in donations.

The mainstream media is ’still included in the cycle’, Gensemer said. “It is often that you’re bypassing them to get to the audience, and then encouraging the media to tell the story to the audience. You’re inverting the relationship a little bit. They don’t serve as the filter any more – when you have the engaged constituency online, you go directly to them.”

Gensemer, who previously worked in the UK on Ken Livingstone’s unsuccessful London mayoral campaign, is currently expanding his operation to the UK political arena by opening an office in London.

Some organisations still believe their audience isn’t online, he said. “It’s no longer the case in the ‘first world’. Even people over 70 – the ’silver surfers’ – they’re out there. They’re willing to do something for you. They just need to be asked. This isn’t just about college kids. This isn’t just about bloggers in Westminster.”

“It is not about magical technology,’ he said, arguing that the key components to successful online campaigning are transparency and authenticity: “You can’t fake it,” he added.

“Do you really believe that the average MP is Twittering?” he asked. “Do you believe that Barack Obama Twitters? I’ll tell you, he doesn’t.”

New social media crazes like Twitter ‘tend to distract,’ Gensemer said.

“It tends to be from shiny object, to shiny object, to shiny object. For organisations that need to invest in deep personal relationships with a variety of people, just doing that sort of scattergun approach is dizzying.

“It burns through political capital pretty quickly because it doesn’t really talk to the people it’s trying to talk to,” he said.

“The lesson of the Obama campaign is to use tools to facilitate a message – don’t use gimmicks. None of this would have happened [just] because somebody was Twittering.”

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NPR’s Inauguration Report site goes live

Laura Oliver — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:20:19 +0000

After we reblogged NPR’s proposals for inauguration coverage with a social media twist, it’s great to see the plans coming into action.

The broadcaster has created Inauguration Report, which features location-based reports from readers and listeners watching the inauguration events in Washington and elsewhere, submitted by text, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

By tagging their entries by location, e.g. L:lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial, NPR will map the accounts. Real-time updates from contributors will feed into this stream.

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Meridian Star: US paper apologises for past civil rights coverage

Laura Oliver — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:49:06 +0000

In the build up to the inauguration of Barack Obama, US newspaper the Meridian Star has published an apology for the paper’s previous coverage of the civil rights movement.

Full story at this link…

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