State of Change

100 Days of Obama-Bashing on Fox (Must-See Video)

By Ari Melber

This fast recap of Fox News' Obama coverage is actually rather effective. Media Matters runs through one quote a day from the first 100 days, revealing Fox's early and abiding interest in tarring the new President as a socialist sell-out presiding over an "Obama bear market." There are also reports of a "Blame America vibe."

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April 29, 2009

Cheney Urges Transparency for Obama at 100 Days

By Ari Melber

It's not too soon anymore. As President Obama nears his 100th day in office, the political and media assessments of his administration are piling up, including this Nation event in Washington on Wednesday.

Now sure, many people say the "100 days" frame is a bit tired. But it's also useful. We can step back from the crush of hourly stories -- the pirates and puppies, the budgets and bonuses -- to consider the larger policies and priorities of this administration.

The American Prospect recently took this tack in reviewing Obama's record on transparency -- a big campaign promise. There is impressive change, in reforming freedom of information policies and releasing the torture memos. There is also more of the same, however, with the administration deploying a radical reading of the "state secrets privilege" to deny torture victims their day in court. In fact, Obama's transparency record is drawing new fire from a very unlikely source.

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April 21, 2009

Obama's Internet Director Finally Steps on Stage

By Ari Melber

Joe Rospars might be the most important Obama strategist you've never heard much about.

He oversaw Internet and new media for the innovative Obama campaign, but usually shunned the spotlight. While many operatives and organizers (understandably) took credit for their victory last November, and opened up about their work during the Inaugural press blitz, Rospars remained largely in the background, just as he did during the campaign. Until today. National Journal's Amy Harder has a detailed profile of the calm mind behind Obama's aggressive Internet strategy:

[One night in March 2007, Obama's web team was] waiting for someone special to arrive -- the campaign's 75,000th donor, a milestone that, at the time, seemed grand. Rospars, then 25, had recently come on as the campaign's new media director, overseeing a team of fewer than a dozen Web specialists. From the start he was committed to recognizing donors, not money, recalls [Sam] Graham-Felsen, who ran the campaign's blog. So when the donation came in, Graham-Felsen remembers Rospars saying, "Let's give that guy a call." The donor's story was spotlighted on the blog and e-mailed to thousands of supporters. The blog post was signed by Graham-Felsen, and the e-mail came from campaign director David Plouffe. Not from Rospars, even though the idea was his. That's how Rospars wanted it.

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April 14, 2009

Live from Obama's Citizen Town Hall at The White House

By Ari Melber

The White House, Washington, D.C. -- President Barack Obama convened his first online town hall here on Thursday, fielding a few popular questions from the web about the economy.

Over about an hour and twenty minutes, Obama took six questions from the Internet and five queries from a small audience gathered in the East Room, the majestic, gold-curtained gathering spot for presidential press conferences and White House "message events." While the town hall event may feel like a minor and measured step, Presidents do not usually answer questions from citizens in the White House who have not been carefully vetted, pre-screened and gathered to present a top-down message from the government.

Obama faced few "hardballs," as several reporters complained after the event in the White House press area, but he did field topics that went beyond the traditional fare at press conferences -- including a passing reference to pot legalization -- and policy priorities that Obama's aides do not share, such as single-payer health care reform.

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March 26, 2009

Big Questions for President Obama's Big Press Conference

By Ari Melber

It is rough out there, but President Obama appears to take it in stride. He is juggling crises, promoting a huge new budget and, to his credit, regularly making his case to the people.

On Tuesday, Obama is holding the second prime time press conference of his first 100 days, keeping him on par with President Bush's early pace for press conferences. (Bush held pressers in February and March of 2001, though he did not tackle prime time, when far more people watch live, until May.) These events are a rare, valuable opportunity for the public to hear the President questioned directly. The press, for its part, is given the responsibility to set the agenda for important policy questions and the public interest priorities that the President should address. In that spirit, here are just a few questions for the big event:

1. Will The Washington Post ask about sports again? Really. The Post used its question at Obama's first presser to ask how he felt about Alex Rodriguez' steroid use. "The Washington Post asked the only question that did not involve domestic or foreign policy," recounted one website devoted to steroids, "and was widely criticized as being inappropriate given the importance of other issues discussed during the prime-time presidential press conference."

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March 23, 2009

NBC's Chuck Todd Gathers Citizen Questions for Obama Presser

By Ari Melber

In another example of traditional journalists experimenting with participatory media, Chuck Todd, NBC's White House Correspondent, is gathering questions from citizens in preparation for Tuesday's prime time press conference with President Barack Obama.

Todd is soliciting question ideas from blog commenters, both through Newsvine.com and a plug on MSNBC's First Read, and he will also look over some of the top questions voted by citizens at Ask The President, (which I just launched in a partnership with The Nation, PDF and The Washington Times). Addressing Newsvine readers, Todd explained:

I'd like question ideas from you for the president next Tuesday night... But I don't necessarily want the question ideas DIRECTLY from you, I want to hear what your neighbors and less politics-obsessed friends and family want asked... I know every reporter claims they are listening to you and I'm not going to promise that I'm going to use a direct question but I do view these prime time press conferences as vehicles for the public...

In response to Ask The President, which enables a more accountable process for transparent voting and question submission by video and text, Todd emailed me asking us to "send ideas" his way. "I'm soliciting question ideas from a wide variety of sources and do want to ask a 'kitchen table' question on Tuesday," he added.

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March 23, 2009

Beyond Obama's Town Hall

By Ari Melber

President Obama fielded eight questions from guests at his town hall event Thursday, including one from the instantly famous eight-year-old Ethan Lopez. It is obviously great for the President to directly interact with citizens, especially as the nation makes such big choices about how to address the economic crisis. Why should the opportunity be arbitrarily limited, however, to people who happened to attend a packed presidential event in one part of the country?

There's no good answer.

At least, not anymore. People used to argue that local events were the only way for a President to hear directly from citizens, but network technology has opened up our civic possibilities, as the Obama campaign showed. It's past time we used these tools to open up the Presidency.

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March 19, 2009

Recession Hits Liberal Radio

By Ari Melber

The nation's economic failures are also media failures, as Jon Stewart and Glenn Greenwald can tell you. So it is particularly sad to see the hard times take down a program that has been consistently, presciently skeptical about corporate and government abuse. Liberal radio host Peter B. Collins has announced that this will be his last week on air:

To make money in syndication, we need to be on 20+ stations and at least one of the big 3, NY, LA, Chicago. As an independent, self-syndicated show, we've had to compete with Air America, Dial-Global and Nova M programs, and for various reasons, the PBC Show didn't break through. Air America is the brand that most people connect with progressive talk radio, and their bankruptcy and sequence of blunders has, unfortunately, defined our collective efforts in a negative way that has provided an easy target ...

Collins tweaked Air America, where he occasionally guest-hosted, for signing TV host Montel Williams, who joined the channel in a surprise announcement last week:

Air America just announced that Montel Williams will be their new offering in the Thom Hartmann time slot, which tells us that Jerry Springer's flameout was just their first attempt to retread a tabloid TV host as a "progressive" radio host.

Meanwhile, in the last month, liberal channels were dropped in once-promising cities like Ann Arbor, Miami and Washington D.C. The trends have been down for at least two years, Collins added: "The total number of stations offering progressive talk in the US peaked at about 105 in 2006, and is now around 70." Collins' show had broadcast in several states, including California, Washington and Massachusetts, but it was not enough.

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March 16, 2009

New MoveOn Director Backs The President, For a Change

By Ari Melber

Justin Ruben had a good meeting with President Obama last week.

As the new executive director of MoveOn.org, the 35-year-old Texan was invited to a small White House gathering for allies on February 18, where he brought a message from his five million members to the new President. "This is a moment to go big," he said, citing daily conversations with MoveOn activists. "We understand that's not going to be easy, but people are mobilized and willing to fight to make it happen. That's really what I carried with me into that room," he said. Ruben outlined MoveOn's goals, its Obama strategy and its mechanisms for grassroots accountability in an exclusive interview with The Nation this week, his first extensive discussion with the media since taking the helm of one of the largest progressive organizations in the country.

As executive director, Ruben must now take a network that has long battled bad ideas – impeaching Clinton, invading Iraq, gutting Social Security – and adapt it to supporting and broadening the administration's agenda. "We're in this amazing position now where we get to fight for stuff," he says. MoveOn's four "core" policy areas, decided by members during December house meetings, are economic recovery, universal health care, climate change and ending the Iraq war. "Finally our top priority," he enthused, "is winning real substantive changes that will make a difference in the lives of everyday Americans."

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February 27, 2009

Obama Announces White House Internet Team

By Ari Melber

The White House rolled out another round of top staff on Monday afternoon, including a list of the tech-savvy aides heading the President's Internet and new media team.

Several of the President's "key White House staff," according to a press release from Robert Gibbs, will manage large portfolios for Internet outreach and "citizen participation" online. The list includes several veterans of Obama's presidential campaign, naturally, a former web adviser to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and a former Google staffer who worked on the company's Moderator platform.

The White House press shop already made a wave, at least by Washington standards, when President Obama called on The Huffington Post at his first press conference. On a recent White House conference call for progressive bloggers, one new media aide said that calling on bloggers at presidential press conferences could be a "new tradition."

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February 23, 2009