Washington’s Oscar weekend begins May 9 as Hollywood and New York’s biggest celebrities come to town for an evening with the President, Vice President, official Washington and the media.
President Obama’s use of new media and social networking was widely praised during the campaign. That same focus a year into his presidency has some in the White House press corps grumbling, according to Howard Kurtz in today’s Washington Post:
“President Obama hasn’t held a full-scale news conference since July. Instead, he answered a dozen people’s questions last week on YouTube, most of the easily finessed and — extra bonus! — no annoying follow-ups of the kind posed by real, live journalists.”
Watch the president’s YouTube interview below:
“It’s a source of great frustration here … It’s important for us to hold the president’s feet to the fire,” CBS White House correspondent Chip Reid told Kurtz.
Greta Van Susteren with Todd Palin at the 2009 WHCInsider Garden Brunch
She may be big in prime time at Fox News, but Greta Van Susteren began her Washington career as a Justice Department intern and CNN contributor. Today she celebrates her 8th anniversary as the host of “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.”
She is the only woman who has regularly delivered top ratings in primetime cable. She has traveled more miles and interviewed more newsmakers than her competition, while being the first prime time host to do a regular web show. Check out Fox’s full-page ad in today’s Wall Street Journal.
Before Rush Limbaugh became a Miss America judge, Van Susteren gained notoriety for making a pageant contestant pass out during her interview.
Click here for the video of Greta reflecting on some of her most memorable interviews.
Obama supporters received an email from the president’s top campaign leader, David Plouffe, thanking them for their participation in a survey about what they want to the President to do in 2010.
The email linked to a web video of Plouffe explaining the survey results and inviting supporters to watch a live strategy update and Q&A session with President Obama on February 4, at 5:45 PM ET, called “A Conversation with the President.”
As Republicans wonder whether allowing Obama’s exchange with GOP lawmakers to be televised was a wise political move, a campaign has started to demand more opportunities for the right and the left to ask some questions.
“[A] bipartisan group of bloggers, commentators, politicos, and Internet advocates—with a combined readership in the millions—has launched an online campaign urging President Obama, GOP House leader John Boehner and Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell to make Question Time—televised and webcasted—a regular feature of American democracy. You can join this call at DemandQuestionTime.com,” writes David Corn (@DavidCornDC) in an article in today’s Mother Jones.
Evidently, interest was overwhelming: the campaign website was down this morning.
Watch the video of the President’s appearance at the House GOP Issues Conference in Baltimore.
The White House announced in a blog post this morning that President Obama will “take questions from YouTube users next Wednesday at a live White House event,” according to Talking Points Memo. Christina Bellantoni reports the project, which was not announced through the usual press channels, is “another example of the Obama team circumventing the Washington establishment to communicate more directly with voters.”
There’s already a free White House iPhone app that will live stream the president’s State of the Union address tomorrow night.
Jay Leno’s back at the Tonight Show (in March) and back at the WHCD (in May), a venue he “headlined in 2004, 2000 and 1987,” according to Ed Henry’sreport this morning at CNN.
The WH Correspondents Association, which hosts the annual dinner to raise money for college scholarships and journalism prizes, invited the comic weeks ago when “he was simply the host of a prime-time show that was failing five nights a week. But when he appears at the [dinner] … Leno will be the guy who pushed aside Conan O’Brien,” writes Lisa de Moraes in today’s Washington Post.
Newly-elected Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown not only got more votes than Martha Coakley on Election Day, he had more Twitter followers (10,76 to 3,657), more Facebook friends (83,535 to 15,573), a bigger YouTube channel (675,208 views to 76,805).
Coakley’s campaign neglected to tweet details of President Obama’s Saturday rally to supporters, according to an article in Advertising Age.
“It was all old-school ways of getting people to spread the word. It felt like they were trying to win Ted Kennedy’s seat using Ted Kennedy’s techniques,” according to David Meerman Scott, a Coakley supporter and author of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR.”
400 Visitors Meet FLOTUS as White House Visitors Office Celebrates Successful Year
White House visitors enjoyed a special welcome yesterday – First Lady Michelle Obama and First Dog Bo in the Blue Room. It was the one-year anniversary of the Obama presidency, which began with President Obama promising “To open the White House to more visitors.”
Associated Press reports more than 614,000 guests visited the White House last year.
Visitors have commented on the lack of personal touches to the Oval Office and the absence of family photos. The spartan look was on dramatic display during NBC News’ unprecedented two-hour, behind-the-scenes special with President Obama in the White House.
Even President Obama’s Air Force One office has a noticeable lack of “stuff.”
But Obama has finally put his own touch on the Oval Office: fresh fruit has replaced cut flowers, family photos are now on display along with Native American pottery and some small technological devices from the mid-19th century on loan from the National Museum of American History’s patent collection.
He’s even added some tchotchkes, including a penholder that was a gift from Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Check out the photos and article by Erin Loechner of “Design for Mankind” on AOL’s ShelterPop blog by clicking here.
Carlos Allen, the alleged “third crasher” at the November State Dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, insists he had an invitation, so says his lawyer in The Washington Post. Like Tareq and Michaela Salahi, Allen has a somewhat clouded professional history in the DC-area: his Mount Pleasant event space, his web site and other entrepreneurial ventures may not have current licenses or registrations.
Click here for the rest of Amy Argetsiner’s article.
Chefs Cristeta Comerford and Bobby Flay took a victory back to the White House last night as they battled it out with super chefs Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse. The show started off in the White House garden with the chefs picking their own fresh vegetables and there was even a visit by the First Lady Michelle Obama.
The vegetables from the garden later became the focal point of the dishes cooked up by the masters of the kitchen. Check out more of the action at the Food Network here.
“Anything that is useful to both dissidents in Iran and Martha Stewart has a lot going for it.”
For WHCInsiders who were out of New York Times range: on the first day of 2010 media maven and bestselling author David Carr declared, “Twitter has more raw capability for users than anything since e-mail.”
Mark Zuckerberg got a big present from Santa this year: Facebook had more traffic on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day than Google. That’s a first, according to Hitwise, which tweeted the news.
MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka predicts Facebook could get a repeat on New Year’s Eve.
The White House Correspondents Dinner gained some notoriety yesterday, when White House Budget Director Peter Orszag proposed to his girlfriend, ABC News correspondent Bianna Golodryga. The two met six months ago at the WHCD — Orszag was a guest at the ABC table.
The New York TimesCaucus Blog reports that Orszag, who emailed 50 friends and family with the good news after popping the question over lunch at Sarabeth’s restaurant in New York City, said he was attracted to Golodryga because, “She’s a Russian Jew who gets up earlier than I do.”
As kids live more of their lives online–through social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and LiveJournal–schools are looking for ways to cope. Slate’s Nicholas Bramble suggests schools should try to harness students’ interest and creativity by integrating social media in the classroom, rather than stifle it.
“After all, it’s not as if most kids are investing commensurate energy into, say, their math homework. Why not try to start bridging the worlds of Facebook, YouTube, and the classroom?”
Bramble shares the warnings of John Dewey from a century ago:
“when teachers suppress children’s natural interests in the classroom, they ’substitute the adult for the child, and so weaken intellectual curiosity and alertness, suppress initiative, and deaden interest.’ By locking social networking out of school, teachers and principals are making exactly that error.”
wwwcspanarchivesorg President Obama was the keynote speaker at the 2009 White House Correspondents Dinner Presidents traditionally poke fun at themselves ... […]
Reuters - Fresh from his on-air dust-up with rival Conan O'Brien, comedian Jay Leno will headline this year's annual White House correspondents dinner. ... […]
Either way, Jay Leno keeps emerging as the winner here &mdah; Oprah rehab interview, White House Correspondents Dinner announcement, now this. Oh and the Tonight Show, now and apparently throughout newly-revised history. ... Mediaite - http://www.mediaite.com/ […]
President Obama’s use of new media and social networking was widely praised during the campaign. That same focus a year into his presidency has some in the White House press corps grumbling, according to Howard Kurtz in today’s Washington Post:
