A far cry from the transparent, open administration he promised to be running, President Obama and his team are now under the scrutiny of the independent media for not only taking advantage of social media to release controlled and slightly staged images of the President, but also for the decreasing access they are giving to photojournalists not on the presidential payroll.
Rooting from the many criticisms and doubts Obama encountered early in his career, the White House sought to neutralize any negative perception by releasing through social media outlets flattering images of the President crafted to make him more relatable and more endearing to the masses. Images of him reenacting the famous 1955 photograph of civil rights activist Rosa Parks, hanging out with famous celebrities, or having a tender emotional moment were sent out by the administration through perhaps the most powerful form of communication we have today for public consumption.
The strategy worked, perhaps way too much. BagNews Notes publisher Michael Shaw says that the administration is now increasingly preventing independent media and photographers to get access to the President while giving White House photographers like Pete Souza almost unrestricted access, all in an effort to prevent unfavorable Presidential images like that of George W. Bush choking on a pretzel from reaching the media and the people.
Todd Krainin of ReasonTV sits down with Shaw in a 12-minute video to shed more light on what’s really happening behind the scenes of the Obama administration’s aggressive social media campaign.
Watch it after the jump.
Via ReasonTV
