A direct line to the Oval Office? Apparently, it’s possible.
Keeping his promise of running an open and more responsive White House, President Obama on Tuesday invited the public to use a new feature on WhiteHouse.gov called ‘Open for Questions’ to ask him economy-related questions and vote on other submitted questions.
“We’re going to take advantage of the Internet to to bring all of you to the White House to talk about the economy,” says President Obama in a video, now available on You Tube. On March 26, in a special “community-moderated online town hall,” the president will answer “some of the most popular questions.” The event will also be streamed live on on WhiteHouse.gov.
It will be interesting to watch the President and his new media team attempt to follow through on their promises of a more wired White House.
Jose Antonio Vargas of the Washington Post says: “Expect a herd of organized (and unorganized) Web users to stampede WhiteHouse.gov and make it a highly trafficked political hub over the next 48 hours.”
At the time of writing this post, 8,664 people had submitted 9,387 questions and cast 322,284 votes. The most popular question so far?
According to Techcrunch, the White House will use Google Moderator to determine which questions President Obama should answer on Thursday.
While the “experiment” is definitely a welcome move towards transparency and accountability, it does raise concerns about how questions will finally be selected and the possibility that this kind of voting system may allow the weakest questions to rise to the top.
There’s no doubt, however, if used effectively, this is a great way to engage the online community. This is an opportunity for us to ask some tough and relevant questions.
Let’s hope we get more than just old boilerplate in return.
Wired Conversations 