The Blog

  • January 31, 2013
  • The Blogger-in-Chief

    The president should have his own blog.  Maybe he’d only post once per week but it would be an incredibly effective way to reach young voters.  My idea comes in through the back door.  The weekly presidential radio address goes out on Saturdays and I have to say that while some news outlets quote it in passing, it doesn’t seem to garner the attention it should.

    Ronald Regan instituted the weekly radio address and it fit his style and unique characteristics.  He was a trained actor able to deliver a message and to be convincing not necessarily with the substance of his words but with the tone and style.  All presidents since have taken up the torch and delivered a Saturday speech that I would say most of us have ignored.

    So what’s better about blogging?

    Well, it’s social for starters.  A blog can collect likes, raw audience numbers and tweets and re-tweets.  All of these things generate numbers that can be tracked to gauge audience receptivity.  That’s a pretty good start.  A blog might be more easily quoted by the op-ed pages of Sunday papers too.

    A blog lives on too, which means that if an interested citizen or reporter wanted to research something related to the blog or that point in time, the option would be open.  I wouldn’t know where to get the presidential Saturday address from four months ago, would you?

    But there’s also the difference between the spoken word and the written word.  For a person like the current president who is an introvert and very logical, a written post is an opportunity to lay out a chain of logic that might be more convincing than a tale or a metaphor committed to radio and less likely to be mischaracterized or misquoted.

    When you get down to it, the difference between a blog and a weekly address are small considering the effort expended.  But the audience reach and the viral capability seem to me to favor blogging.  No doubt someone will point out that the radio address goes out to a population that may not have or use computers.  To that I say, keep talking.  Just remember to publish the speech to your blog when you are done so that the digital natives have it too.

    Published: 11 years ago


    Discussion

    • February 5th, 2013 at 12:06 am    

      WASHINGTON – In this week’s address, President Obama said America can prosper and win the future by supporting innovation, education, and infrastructure. This past week, the President highlighted how students and researchers at Penn State University are poised lead the way on innovation and job creation through their work on energy efficiency. In the coming week, he will visit Marquette, Michigan, where high-speed broadband infrastructure is connecting a small town to the larger world. And on Monday, he will talk to the Chamber of Commerce about how if we make America the best place to do business, then businesses should make their mark on America by setting up shop in America, hiring American workers, and paying good wages. The audio and video of the address will be available online at http://www.whitehouse.gov at 6:00 a.m. ET, Saturday, February 5, 2011.

      • February 5th, 2013 at 7:47 am    

        Thanks for this, it shows someone’s heart is in the right place. However, it has to be said that this is more of a grocery list of events than a blog. A blog, especially what I envision for the blogger in chief would be an opportunity to express ideas, convictions and to persuade people about a viewpoint.

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