When Old Government Intersects with New Media

The Obama White House just started a “blog” but despite the sleek visual design, “The Briefing Room” is a very Web 1.0 format. Media expert Jay Rosen of Press Think  on Twitter described it as “press releases” and scanning the posts leads me to agree with him. It’s very hard for established legacy entities – even one now filled with techies – to embrace the risk of uncontrolled discussion. Perhaps the blog should be farmed out to whatever Obama is calling his private political action group; lacking comments or an authentic, personal, voice The Briefing Room is likely to become a tepid EOB version of Dipnote – except even less interesting.

The SWJ Model can be replicated for other fields but the requirements of independence, community-building, intellectual diversity, relative transparency, openness to membership and free debate appear to be non-negotiable elements. Features, not bugs. 

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