White House Not Nearly as Transparent as Its Instagrams

Critics Charge White House Not Nearly as Transparent as Its Instagrams

BY  FRAN BREKMAN

As President Barack Obama prepares for one of his most important speeches of the year, he looks at a piece of paper with his chief speech writer. Someone on his staff eats Indian food — spicy eggplant. The press secretary talks to the press and drinks a lot of coffee. The Obamas' two dogs — Sunny and Bo — sit nearby.

Only someone with extensive access to the President and his team could know all these intimate details, right? Not quite. These days anyone with a free smartphone app, or even just an Internet connection, can have this kind of "inside" access.

In fact, the White House has designated a hashtag to punctuate its Instagram posts showing Obama staff members preparing for Tuesday's State of the Union Address — #InsideSOTU. But not everyone agrees on the value of this so-called insider access.

Critics contend that Obama has not delivered on his self-imposed goal of leading "the most open and transparent [administration] in history." This isn't because there's anything wrong with Instagram photos of Sunny and Bo, rather because the administration's openness on social media contrasts with the restrictions it places on the news media.

Social Media and Censorship

"Journalists and transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the press," reads an Octoberspecial report by the non-profit Committee to Protect Journalists.

The report alleges that Obama's administration gives the guise of transparency with frequent posts to social networks such Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram, as well as official websites and blogs. But while the pre-screened information flows out through official channels, administration officials "are increasingly afraid to talk to the press."

The following fact from the CPJ report was cited as evidence of the administration's tendency toward censorship:

Six government employees, plus two contractors including Edward Snowden, have been subjects of felony criminal prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act, accused of leaking classified information to the press — compared with a total of three such prosecutions in all previous U.S. administrations.

The conclusion the CPJ draws is that the "administration-generated information" the White House publishes online each day is not sufficient for the "press and public to hold the administration accountable for its policies and actions." This is in stark contrast to Obama's stated transparency goals.

The CPJ isn't the only group with a problem with how the Obama administration manages its image, though. Associated Press photo editor Santiago Lyon ripped the administration in aNew York Times op-ed titled "Obama’s Orwellian Image Control."

Manifestly undemocratic, in contrast, is the way Mr. Obama’s administration — in hypocritical defiance of the principles of openness and transparency he campaigned on — has systematically tried to bypass the media by releasing a sanitized visual record of his activities through official photographs and videos, at the expense of independent journalistic access.

In November, 38 of the nation's most-prominent news organizations co-signed a letter to Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, calling for less restrictions on access to Obama for press photographers.

"You are, in effect, replacing independent photojournalism with visual press releases," the letter reads.

New Media Changed the Game

For the White House's recent #InsideSOTU campaign, different staff members have taken control of the White House Instagram account and documented their preparations for the speech. It started last week with speech writer Cody Keenan. Carney himself managed the Instagram posts on Monday.

(Carney later tweeted that our tax dollars didn't pay for all that caffeine.)

"From the President on down, everyone here believes strongly in the absolute necessity of a free and independent press to cover the presidency, to cover the government, to cover Washington," Carney said in response to the Times op-ed at a news conference last month.

Carney, who himself worked as a journalist for more than 20 years at the Miami Herald andTime, said in light of the aforementioned complaints he was working to expand the press' access to Obama. But he also he talked about how the debate is nothing new.

"Now, the tension between White Houses and White House press corps over access is longstanding," Carney said. "I remember having debates about these issues when I was sitting in your seat — or the seat behind you — and know that this has been an ongoing discussion."

New media, specifically social media sites like Instagram, has added a new dimension to the debate. As Carney pointed out, White House photographers have been snapping and releasing photos long before Pete Souza, who currently holds the post.

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Yet instead of giving news organizations — the former gatekeepers of information — the power to ignore or publishes such "visual press releases," the White House can now push them directly to its millions of social media followers.

Democratization of Media

A White House official, who asked to remain anonymous, in an email to Mashable contended that Obama's communications team has complete control over the President's social media image because administration policy advisors frequently use official social media accounts to interact with Americans.

For instance, administration officials and Obama himself will respond to Americans' questions about the State of the Union Address in Google+ Hangouts later in the week.

While many still feel Obama has not kept his promise of leading the most open and transparent administration, the debate is not likely to abate anytime soon.

Obama, the first social-media president, has set a precedent for leveraging these digital communication tools. It's ironic, in a way, that the world's most prominent champion of democracy is being scrutinized for taking advantage of tools that have revolutionarily democratized the media landscape.

But the press always wants more access to high-level officials, and critics will likely continue to remind the administration that using social media shouldn't lead to less interaction with reporters.

As long as we the people continue to like and retweet such posts, it's also likely that Obama and future heads of state will continue to share. The question of how we ensure we're getting all sides of the story, however, remains open for debate.

http://mashable.com/2014/01/28/white-house-instagram-debate/