Ask the President

Of his many promises during the 2008 Presidential campaign, one of the most appealing was Barack Obama's pledge to make his administration "the most open and transparent in history." The democratizing tools mastered at MyBarackObama.com and the inspiring grassroots enthusiasm for the Obama campaign opened the door to a presidency that -- in stark contrast to the eight years before it -- could be an honest conversation with the American people. This week we are launching a new project to continue that effort; more on that in a moment.

Like many of the issues that Barack Obama now confronts as President, prioritizing his campaign promise of open government and meaningful dialogue with citizens has proved challenging. After some interesting forays into interaction at change.gov during the transition, The White House itself has not yet found it's way forward on interactivity.

As newspapers struggle nationwide, and citizens demand more transparency in the wake of unprecedented government action on the economy, I believe this is a critical moment to advance participatory, bottom-up journalism and citizen engagement. Interest in our new President is at a peak, and instituting an independent and sensible way for the people to have a platform at the highest levels of government is essential to informed debate and progress on the changes many of us hope to see over the next four years.

In that spirit The Nation, with several partners, is launching a new initiative, "Ask the President," to advance citizen voices and participatory media at The White House. The idea is simple: at www.communitycounts.com/Obama, anyone can submit a question for President Obama, written or by video. Site visitors then vote on the questions, with the most popular and pressing ones rising to the top. We will then send a credentialed journalist into formal Obama Administration press conferences to ask the leading citizen questions. Presently we are in conversations with the Administration about this effort.

Our coalition includes new and traditional media from across the political spectrum, including:
The Nation, The Washington Times, Personal Democracy Forum, Change.org, Democrats.com, Care2.com, Citizens for Civil Discourse, 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.

So far, initial conversations about this project with The White House have been encouraging. We see this as an innovation that President Obama should welcome -- an independent, cooperative way to forward the President's promise of transparent government that empowers voices beyond Washington.

You can read the proposal in more detail by checking out Ari Melber's article in the current issue of The Nation; then go and submit your questions now at Ask the President.

The technology, of course, is a means to an end: an engaged and excited electorate having a spirited debate with the President. Granted, this is only one question at a semi-regular event, but as journalism transforms and technology shifts, Ask the President could help to democratize the reporting and prioritizing of political news, and encourage the Obama Administration to keep a critical promise. It's just a first step, but one that we believe is well worth taking.

Comments

[army193]

President Obama has been office for 59 days and to some he is failing to turn this all around that took 30 years to get us to this point. I am thankful he has a brain the last President we had was ask a question about his brain and mistook it for train and said I will pass.

[MPeter]

Katrina, that is a brilliant idea. This is going to engage the administration directly and will help us keep ownership of this administration as completely ours.

[Kalena]

What happened to your 'totally new paradigm'?
Too much is biz as usual.
We need to imagine a new financial system along with new healthcare, energy, and other systems.
NOW...not after we throw all our money on the old paradigms.

[exoevolution]

YES - the old systems are dead or dying!

When are we going to stop straightening the deck chairs on the Titanic??

Lets evacuate to a new ship, a new paradigm!!

Lets put our money & effort into the FUTURE, not continuing the "useless" efforts of keeping the doomed Titanic "institutions" of the PAST afloat!!!

The CORPORATIST Titanic ideas of the past are heading quickly to the icy cold depths. When do we abandon ship & board the Ship of Hope & New Ideas??

When do we get CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE & NOT "More of the Same"??

When will we finally have "ENOUGH" of the OLD FAILED CORPORATIST IDEAS that have brought us all to this massive iceberg of destruction & killer of dreams??

Wall Street & Washington will never provide the answers for a new paradigm, they are only interested in straightening the deck chairs & maintaining the outdated, obsolete, oligarchy of "their" power!!

President Obama we have a big country full of big ideas, its time to look elsewhere, NOW!!

Wall Street & Washington are deadly icebergs, they offer no salvation only more illusions fueled by GREED, INCOMPETENCE & CORRUPTION!!

We need a new form of capitalism that cares more about people than profits!!

We need nothing less than a new paradigm - NOW!!

[holeybuybull]

My NCLB question was for JSilasRed, not Ken Freedom.

[GreatNews27]

Dear Mr. President,

Why are you helping millionaires steal money from my elderly sister? You laugh and smile and talk an awful lot about honesty but when it comes right down to it, you side with the criminals. You even hire criminals to run your Treasury. Why is that?

[themainpoint]

Great idea. My question is this:

Tice who worked at the NSA under Bush (as noted in Robert Kennedy's Huffpo blog several weeks ago) said that all Americans (e-mails and phone calls) were recorded by the government and that the information is stored somewhere. That's pretty creepy and unconstitutional. So I'd be curious to know:

A) Why I haven't heard that Obama put an end to massive government spying on all Americans. Did he?

B) What is the Obama administration is doing with all the stored e-mails and phone content that was stored? Have they gotten rid of it? Where is it stored? Who has access to it? What is it used for?

[rocketman69]

When is a list of the foreign banks that got money from the bailout going to be posted on Change.org?

[FearlessFreep]

I'd prefer "Tell your president."

[JSilasRed]

Other than the Fact that The Nation is an unabashedly Marxist Propaganda Tool this is a vaguely unique idea.

How do you plan to prevent Marxist Bias from controling the Press Session ?

Just Curious , you know.

Not that I think you HAVE an agenda, you know.

What happens when yu alienate 60% of the country by repaeating the same bullshit socialist agenda talking points over and over again ?

[Ken Freedom]

Recent polling suggests that the bullshit socialist agenda only alienates 20% of the country, as opposed to the bullshit plutocratic agenda pursued by the GOP, which appears to alienate about 80% of the country.

[holeybuybull]

Are you a product of the "No Child Left Behind" policy?

[naschkatze]

What an excellent idea. Lately President Obama has struck me as a bit of a double shuffle artist, and it's time for him to deliver for those of us who actually voted for him. Ms. vanden Heuvel, I want to take this chance to commend you for standing by progressive causes all the past eight years when barely anyone else did.