What if George W. Bush had a blog? Now, I don’t mean what if he was technologically capable to create and manage his own website and blog interface–that is too much to ask–but what if he had a website or just a newsletter like a blog or a LiveJournal where he would confess his inner thoughts like a diary. It wouldn’t have to be government secrets or damaging information on his thinking about America’s relationship with China; it could just be a daily grind of domestic affairs, what he did that day or where he wants to go with the country or government–his objectives.

The reason I bring this up is because I started thinking about what it would mean for the President to have a blog in situations such as the current one with Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney catching heat for the leak incident. Would a presidential blog make America trust W more?

Nixon kept tapes during Watergate, but he never released them. What if he had made daily memo logs like a little Captain Picard throwback diary and released it to the public everyday. Would that bring the President into our daily lives? Today, it seems like Bush is locked away in his White House ice palace with no entry or exit. The gates around the White House get taller and thicker everyday. In a land of freedom, we have to break down a tremendous barrier to actually get to what the President is thinking. I mean what the President is actually thinking, not just what his speech writers have created. Personally, the whole idea of a speech writer seems untrustworthy. Someone can assist you in writing a speech but delivering a message composed by a public relations department and okayed with several different handlers just seems like lying. I want my president to be able to speak for himself and know what he is trying to get across.

Would a presidential blog make our president more honest? If we knew more of what he was thinking, his insecurities and his goals–the good and the bad–would it make for a better country or a worse one?

There are those that want to know what the President is thinking and accept his fears and his concerns with what he is doing and then there are those that don’t want to know when our president is unsure or afraid of a decision; some people just want to close their eyes and sleep at night without concern that the country is all going downhill. I think there is a happy compromise in that relationship where you could take what a president is concerned about without interpreting it as a weakness or a mistake. Our presidents have flaws just like each and everyone of us, and I don’t think it is fair to pretend like just because they run the country at the moment, they never trip over their shoelaces or fall off a couch while choking on a pretzel.

Humanity in the presidency could be a big step in building better morale in the country and maintaining a high approval rating. Granted some people don’t read blogs or look online, but those that do would probably be the most concerned about the state of the country in the first place. Politicians are proving the online community has an interest in politics because of the many viewers of political blogs online and the number of people taking part in new forms of campaign fundraising online. Candidates have had lunch with their supporters online and collected donations through the Internet. This could be the future of elections and of campaigning. What if the candidates didn’t have to travel as much–granted they would still have to visit certain places–in order to visit with their supporters?

It could be a whole different world. W, you need a blog–just ask Nixon. An open White House might not hurt you in the long run if you played your cards right.

Technorati tag: blogging, bush, whitehouse.

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Another article from the former PartyCampus.com that I wrote back in the fall of 2004. Not many comments from the PartyCampus.com readership on this one…

A recent article in The New York Times highlighted recent news release segments produced by the government to promote agendas or support initiatives such as the war in Iraq. Video segments were filmed and sound bites were placed praising the administration for their job in Baghdad. The same story also brought up columnists who were exposed for being paid by the government to write in support of the administration’s policies. Now, it is fine for the government or any institution to try and generate positive publicity. Celebrities and corporations are constantly throwing stuff out there to try and advertise products or themselves. All you have to do is marry Britney Spears, which isn’t that hard these days. If there wasn’t so much secrecy surrounding the White House, the Bush family might have their own reality show on MTV.

The problem with this practice arises when news organizations neglect to inform people that these video clips or printed news releases are made by another institution and not the news organization. Most people take what is in the paper or on the televised news to be objective reporting, so putting news releases on without attribution is comparable to lying to the public.

As the public of tomorrow, we shouldn’t let the world we will inherit become a manipulating commercial nightmare. Press releases have tried to put spin on news forever, but video news releases go out pre-formatted with interviews and commentary ready-to-play for news programs. If someone sends you your homework, you probably will just use it as is and not write “Made by my friend Mike” at the top of the first page. Video releases make it too easy for journalists to be lazy and not preface the report with a statement on its source. Small-town stations serving rural areas are especially likely to show these releases because they don’t have the resources to investigate themselves. Within those communities, no one would be able to scrutinize the news and have no other source to contradict the news released. Jethro and Paw would be none the wiser–maybe they would have been anyway, but they deserve a chance.

If this policy continues, pretty soon the news will be a series of commercials for various corporate and government interests. I know I don’t want to start seeing infomercials on my news broadcasts. I get enough of those in the early hours of the morning while recovering from the night’s festivities. Just imagine “1,000 soldiers have now lost their lives in Iraq, but you could save tons of money if you switch to Geico.”

Some media outlets, such as the FOX News Channel, have already been accused of spreading propaganda in their programs, and, if the media begins to air un-attributed news releases, all channels would eventually go the same way. It is not the place of the government to frame and report on its own functions; journalism and the First Amendment were designed to maintain a watch on the government for the public. It is also not the place of the government to influence columnists or influence them to gain their support. Columnists are not paid to write someone else’s opinion; people look to columnists as having their own personal biases, but not advertising for the highest bidder.

I can appreciate independent sources of opinion and news for keeping commercialization out of the media. Perhaps we will all just have to start going to more bloggers and Internet sources for our news. What has the world come to when “Diary of a FreaKaZOID” has more truth than CNN? While these outlets may or may not have their biases, in many cases they admit their bias. We expect a need to be skeptical of things we read on the Internet as opposed to what we see on the front page of the paper. Whatever the solution, I hope journalism will survive without being spoiled by a flood of government or corporate produced news releases because it is not fair to any of us.

With that said, we should all rush off to our nearest news station that we feel is not being responsible and burn that mother down–no kids, you can’t blame me because that is not what I am saying. All I am hoping to instill is a demand for morals, a foreign concept for some people during their youth and possibly their entire lives. It is these morals that will prevent media from becoming a commercial spectacle.

Technorati tag: Bush, Iraq, journalism, fox.

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