Senior adviser David Axelrod (left) and press secretary Robert Gibbs (center) check their messages as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel ponders his next move during a presidential news conference in 2009. Twitter has become one their political tools. (Associated Press)Want to spin White House reporters?
If you're PressSec - White House press secretary Robert Gibbs' username on Twitter - you join the powerful social media platform and push your message across the Internet, 140 characters at a time.
Blending behind-the-scenes nuggets with a defense of President Obama's record, White House and administration officials increasingly are communicating via Twitter.
The popular social network is operating as a Web-based clearinghouse for public statements on weighty subjects (the federal budget) and the mundane (personal grocery lists). It's similar to a bulletin board where anyone can post short notes and users cull the pieces they see by choosing to "follow" individuals' account.
Forget press releases. Mr. Gibbs and his deputy, Bill Burton, are now sharing news in Twitter messages. So far 33,000 people have signed up to follow Mr. Gibbs and more than 6,000 are tracking Mr. Burton. Those two officials have a ways to go to catch actor Ashton Kutcher and his 4.6 million followers.
"Wow unreal game ... POTUS watched OT in his office right off the Oval Office - all of us are so proud of our great team," Mr. Gibbs tweeted during the recent men's Olympic hockey finals, when the Americans lost the gold-medal game to Canada in overtime. POTUS, of course, is the acronym for president of the United States.
Mr. Burton offered a midgame, inside-the-Beltway joke: "Tied! White House response, on bgnd, from a low- to midlevel administration official: USA! USA! USA!" (He was referring to a favorite administration request when talking to the press "on background" means the official won't be identified publicly.) After the U.S. loss, Mr. Burton noted that America still led the overall medal race.
These are hardly the pronouncements one expects from the president's top spokesmen. But as Mr. Obama's team continues an online strategy set in place during the campaign and imported to Pennsylvania Avenue, it seems only natural they would make it a piece of a broader communications plan that extends across the government.
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice tweets about diplomacy, Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela tweets about the Western Hemisphere and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke tweets about trade.
"Welcome back, furloughed DOTers!" Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood tweeted recently to his employees.
By Jeannine Aversa - Associated Press
updated 15 minutes ago
The recovery lost momentum in the spring as growth slowed to a 2.4 percent pace, its most sluggish showing in nearly a year and too weak to drive down unemployment. Published 8:33 a.m. July 30, 2010
By Sean Lengell - The Washington Times
The House ethics committee officially lodged charges against Rep. Charles B. Rangel, including that he used his office to raise $8 million for a college public policy center named after him and didn't file taxes while he was Congress' chief tax writer. Published 8:56 p.m. July 29, 2010
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