Whitehouse.gov launches blog as Barack Obama is sworn in as President

So change has come to America. And change has come to the White House website. The new administration has launched a Presidential blog. It will ‘serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world’.

No promises that the President will be doing the blogging himself, (he may have a few other slightly more pressing concerns), but Obama has committed himself to ‘making his administration the most open and transparent in history’.

The first blog post was written by Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House. He says new media efforts will initially focus on communication, transparency and participation.

There’s talk of slideshows, video, engagement, publication of Presidential decisions, and opportunities to comment on non-emergency legislation. In short, it’s ambitious. (Rather like the rest of Obama’s agenda.)


I was tipped off by Robin Hamman via Twitter though sure others were on it too. Like Adam Tinworth. Here’s Reuters. They feel it’s necessary to say ‘the site features a web-log or blog’ just in case you haven’t been living in the 21st Century these last eight years.