Would you like to see the President take questions from actual American's as well as White House Press Corp members during Presidential press conferences? Well, now you can. Go to the Ask The President website, ask a question and your fellow citizens will vote on which question(s) they think should be asked of President Obama. A journalist will then ask President Obama the question in his next Press Conference.
Here is how it happened.
On Feb 19, 2009 The Nation's Ari Melber asked his Twitter followers (specifically Bob Fertik) this:
- @bobfertik Then let's build a transparent coalition to advocate inclusion of citizen qs at every prez presser. Email if interested. #p2
In what is an amazing example of what I call TwitterSpeed, the Twitter community responded and Ari worked his magic to launch Ask The President with the following bi-partisan coalition:
- Major Sponsors: The Washington Times, The Nation and The Personal Democracy Forum (PDF). Click here for the site.
- Additional co-sponsors include: Change.org, Democrats.com, Care2.com, Citizens for Civil Discourse (StopPoliticalCalls.org), Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist), Professor Larry Lessig; Professor Hugh Hewitt (HughHewitt.com); The Field Blog; Jack and Jill Politics Blog; Culture Kitchen Blog and the Smart Mobs blog, among others.
My role has been to work with Jon Pincus on Twitter outreach strategy, to set up the @AskThePresident Twitter account, and to generate word of mouth around the project. Jon has been keeping a very useful blog post going on our strategy and learning so far at this blog.
Results to date (in 24 hours of launch time):
- On the @AskThePresident Twitter Account: 355 followers
- On the Ask The President website: 209 questions asked; 7,444 votes received; 694 voters participating
- In the Media:
- Ari Melber's initial article at the Nation.
- Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor of the Nation, in the Huffington Post.
- The Columbia Journalism Review pick up.
- The Albany Project Blog pick up.
Here is my question! Vote!:
