White House Blogger Summit Embarrassing Proof of Obama’s Distance from Black Community
Tell anyone who reads MediaTakeout.com that the site was invited to the White House as part of its effort to “broaden online engagement” with the black community and it will be at least 5 minutes before you can continue the conversation due to the laughter that will ensue.
Media sites have been buzzing about the fact that a few of the members of the African American blogger community who were invited to participate broke the ground rules (the first half of the President’s brief was to be for background only and no quote attribution, the second half was completely off the record). The White House responded by posting a quick after-the-fact blog about the “Summit” including the complete list of list of invitees.
The list is embarrassing and perplexing to say the least.
Beyond Media Take Out among the list were representatives from the urban music gossip blog Concrete Loop, the gossip sites Young Black and Fabulous and Global Grind, politics blog sites like Jack & Jill Politics, as well as news sites like The Washington Post’s The Root, and NBC’s The Grio. Even online dating sites got a seat at the table via Black People Meet’s inclusion in the Summit.
This is such a jumbled mess of an attendee list I’m hard pressed to know where to begin my critique. Many of the sites and site-representatives who gained access to this Summit are notorious for publishing questionable content. The Root’s Cord Jefferson was roundly criticized for his historically inaccurate comparison of the Black Panthers and the Tea Party and Global Grind has admitted to routine content-scraping of other sites.
Media Take Out and Young Black and Fabulous are known to print highly speculative and, in many cases, clearly false information about people in the public eye. Much of the content on Media Take Out’s web site is graphic and certainly not safe for viewing on your work computer. What could they possibly add to a conversation about Obama’s healthcare, education, and civil rights policies?
I have to wonder what kind of research, if any, went into making these picks. They range from the not-very-important-or-relevant to the wildly inappropriate. If the White House was trying to show they’re serious about connecting with African Americans and discussing their issues this wasn’t the way to do it.
All it takes it one click on the homepage of Global Grind or Media Take Out to see that those are not sites that should represent black people politically in any way, nor are they sites that black people visit to engage in serious political debate. Even BET, which does some news reporting wouldn’t be a top pick for most black people when deciding who should represent the community in meetings at the highest levels of government.
As a black woman and confirmed policy wonk, I can tell you, I don’t look to music and gossip blogs for thought leadership. It’s almost as if the White House decided that any blog or web site that is owned or read by black people would be sufficient. I think black people DESERVED better representation at the White House than what was provided via this summit. And if the administration was serious about connecting with bloggers whose audiences they want to engage they all but completely missed the mark.
I have to wonder whether when the White House holds an “integrated” online engagement summit if comparable white, Latino, and Asian sites will be invited. For example, will Harvey Levin be invited to represent TMZ? What about Perez Hilton? Eharmony? Cosmopolitan.com? Something tells me, the types of sites extended an invitation to talk real policy won’t be of the gossip and fashion magazine ilk.
The biggest controversy that has surrounded this summit so far has been the discussion of the breaking of ground rules. Certainly a few of the bloggers broke those ground rules and Natasha Eubanks of Young Black and Fabulous and Kelli Goff of Loop 21 seemed shamefully unapologetic about doing so. Obviously, the bloggers acted in poor and inadvisable taste, but the bigger issue here is the question of seriousness.
Why were credible bloggers excluded for the most part? Is flawed research to blame or something more sinister such as a desire to avoid serious dialogue with the black community? Whatever the case, the President has now elevated the importance and legitimized the existence of sites that add very little to the debate and, in some cases, destroy it altogether.
I can’t decide if the White House doesn’t take the online community seriously or if they believe that the list of invitees is a genuinely accurate representation of black political engagement on the web. Either way, this Summit proves there is a gaping hole in between the President and the black community online and off.
**Complete list of bloggers who attended the summit from the White House blog.
- Aminah Hanan, Blogging While Brown
- Angel Laws, Concrete Loop
- Barion Grant, theGrio
- Claudio Cabrera, NewsOne
- Cord Jefferson, The Root
- Darrell Williams, Ph.D., theLoop21.com
- David Wilson, theGrio
- Deborah Bennett, HelloBeautiful
- Denmark West, BET Networks
- Fred Mwangaguhunga, MediaTakeOut
- Jackie Jones, BlackAmericaWeb.com
- Jeffery Holley, Concrete Loop
- Jeneba Ghatt, Black Web Media
- Jody Vaughn, BET Networks
- Keli Goff, theLoop21.com
- Leutisha Stills, Jack & Jill Politics
- Mario Armstrong, Black Web Media
- Mark Thomas, City Limits
- Michael Skolnick, Global Grind
- Natasha Eubanks, The YBF (Young, Black & Fabulous)
- Ron Worthy, BlackPeopleMeet
- Wendy WIlson, ESSENCE
I found some of the comments that supported (or at least semi-supported) the inclusion of gossip rag blogs interesting.
Melanie S said: “They were not trying to reach politically savvy or credible sites. They were trying to reach popular sites that attract a certain following. Obama is trying to connect with this black demographic, so he gathered the places they go to for news in one room. Yes, I said news. It sounds bizarre, but there are people who see The Root, MTO and Theybf as credible sources for information.”
I’d like to hear more about this demographic and we could speculate Obama intends to do with them. I think The Root is certainly credible, but what would the White House do with the the kind of person (or even the age group) who reads Media Take Out to acquire accurate information?
Cynadoll says: I really don’t believe the WH will utilize these sites to engage in substantive political discussions. I think they’ll be used the same way the WH engages urban radio(i.e. Tom Joyner, Steve Harvey, Michael Baisden, etc)…to get the word out. To make announcements during elections or when Obama needs an important bill passed and he wants you to call your senators/congressman.
I like this comment and I wonder if people think that this lends itself to the idea that Obama only wants to engage with black folks when he needs votes. A couple of white commenters alluded to that on other comment boards.
Another thing I thought of: There were other ways for Obama to reach out to these sites besides having a closed-door meeting at the White House. And, for his VERY FIRST closed door meeting with the black blogosphere, I still think that many of these choices were inappropriate.
Finally Inkognegro said: “I think the choice of blogs speaks more to The Completely Bizarro world status of the Black Blogosphere.”
I’d like to hear him further explain this but as written, I agree. Even a credible source like The Root are confusing sometimes in terms of their goals and content.
And just to be clear, the White House DID portray this as a POLICY discussion meeting, not as a lightweight will-you-help-us-get-out-the-vote effort.
From their blog:
On Monday, the White House hosted its first African American Online Summit, which brought together a group of programming leaders from the African American online media world for an in-depth briefing and discussion about how the Administration is approaching important issues such as jobs, the economy, health care, education, community investment, civil rights and civil liberties, and the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative.
The morning was spent with a series of policy briefings on everything from health care reform to the economy. After everyone had a chance to ask questions about specific issues, President Obama was able to drop by for a few minutes to welcome everyone and his senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, was able to stick around to kick off a wide-ranging discussion about how we could work together to engage their audiences.
Posted in Across the Web, Media Strategy @ 9:20pm 
Are we, Are we offended, Blogification, Politics
Well unfortunately it seems as the White House wasn’t looking for blogs that could accurately represent politics or the President. They chose websites that most African Americans view on the daily basis which unfortunately are mostly music and gossip blogs. I doubt they’ll allow themselves to be put in this position again.
True. I’d be interested to see what kind of engagement the administration would like to do with the gossip sites if they’re interest is to just go where the readers are. Would they really place stories there? I find it interesting.
I think that the reasoning for inviting such a “diverse” group of black bloggers was so they could reach out to the black online audience that may not take part in the political debate. A fine cause but that message was certainly not clear. Part of the meeting being off-the-record and the rest no direct quotes meant that the bloggers had little to take back to their audience other than “OMG I just met the President!”
Could be. I just don’t know that there’s a point to it. I think most of us go to those sites for the entertainment, not for the information. In other words, how can they help the administration drive a debate when we don’t go to those sites for facts.
I do agree that this simply HIGHLIGHTS the issue raised before in the NYT (and I am sure other places as well) that President Obama’s inner circle, as well as broader team lacks Black people.
The administration’s fear of looking too black (and thus too scary or whatever) has translated into leaving Black officials out of the inner circle, and out of the loop.
People who could have raised a flag because they had more of a sense that Mediatakeout was not the BEST blog to bring as a representative of the Black blogosphere… but this shows, whoever was behind putting together this summit doesn’t know the Black community.
It was stereotypical at best.
This is the comment I was going to make. This is not about Obama’s distance from the Black community. It’s about his inner circle’s distance. I bet would bet cash money Obama didn’t choose which blogs got to come. The question is who did?
It doesn’t prove his disengaged from the Black community. Most of the Black people I know don’t know what Media Take Out is. And I’d bet that most of them are right in MTO’s demographic range.
This is a failure to do due diligence & not just look at site traffic. I also think it’s quite possible that spencella is totally correct & they just wanted a big reach & didn’t care where it came from.
If you don’t measure Obama’s distance from the black community by the actions of the White House on a whole, how do you judge it?
Many people who are crying about the selections view the sites. I don’t view Media Take Out or other sites that insult celebrities on a regular but let’s be serious….MANY Black people do and they know it. That is the unfortunate part. So perhaps the person who made the selections was going by viewership and not by those who could have a cultural and intellectual impact on anyone. Unfortunate but it seems like one of those “it is what it is” situations. I wish there weren’t any of those situations. Heh.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tea Arthur , blackgirlgrown, Hot About Obama, Hot In Real Estate, Raising Child & Self and others. Raising Child & Self said: #fail —–> RT @mediastrut Obama meets with black bloggers and I can't believe the list: http://bit.ly/dz7QvY [...]
I was at work when all the s*** hit the fan with this story, for the most part gaining my understanding of the “controversy” through my twitter timeline. What happened was a failure of the White House to simply do some googling and basic reading of the sites that they invited as a part of the summit. Anyone who is a regular internet user knows MediaTakeOut, and to a lesser extent, YBF are about as credible as a crackhead looking for their next fix. This event showed the WH lack of communications savvy and their disconnect with the urban blogosphere as a whole.
The WH shouldn’t take all the blame, though. For SOME (Natasha/Kelli/jack&jill) of the bloggers to flaunt and deliver pieces of conversations that they had with the president in order to gain clout among the blogosphere was disgusting and reeked of unwarranted hubris. Hell, even Mediatakeout kept their thirsty mouths closed until the WH put on their blog the picture of said bloggers and the sites invited to the shindig. And with the NY Times and Drudge willing to spin the mistakes of both parties into “controversial” news, there’s no telling into what’s going to happen next in regards to this story.
I just hope that the mistakes made does not hinder the White House from inviting people from all forms of media to be represented at future events, only if said media’s views furthers political discourse down a smart, positive but critical path.
I agree. MTO’s business sense is pretty good though…that explains why they’ve grown so fast. So it surprises me that they stayed quiet but then it doesn’t. Almost makes me feel bad for saying their site is graphic and not credible…but that actually is true and they know that.
I hope it doesn’t stop other black outlets from being invited either. Maybe they will hold an integrated online summit and make sure black bloggers are represented well and in abundance.
I feel like there may be some jealousy issues. You missed the whole point.
Can you explain what point I missed? It’s helpful in a comment section to actually make a point rather than an unsubstantiated accusation. I’ll leave your comment up until tomorrow, if you haven’t followed up I will delete it.
JD,
As Cooper pointed out, a cursory review of any of these sites should have alerted the WH to the fact that MTO, Bossip, YBF et al deserved NO SEAT at a table with the POTUS. Who researched this list? Who approved the list? What were the criteria?
The WH has legitimized these blogs/gossip rags as real news sources. This was just the stamp of approval they needed to drive up traffic.
SMDH. So sad.
Well written piece, you make good points. I hope the (lily) White House will consider hosting another summit that is more representative of the politically focused African American community.
Wow!
I would have to agree that the WH staff who chose the invitees did solely on the basis of highest blog traffic. No vetting was done obviously.
But I really don’t believe the WH will utilize these sites to engage in substantive political discussions. I think they’ll be used the same way the WH engages urban radio(i.e. Tom Joyner, Steve Harvey, Michael Baisden, etc)…to get the word out. To make announcements during elections or when Obama needs an important bill passed and he wants you to call your senators/congressman.
As far as the YBFs founder’s lack of professionalism…that site is all about getting traffic by any means necessary. No way was she going to keep silent.
I disagree with both the title and tone of this article. I think Obama and his staff knew exactly what they were doing by gathering this mix of black media. They were not trying to reach politically savvy or credible sites. They were trying to reach popular sites that attract a certain following. Obama is trying to connect with this black demographic, so he gathered the places they go to for news in one room. Yes, I said news. It sounds bizarre, but there are people who see The Root, MTO and Theybf as credible sources for information. Honestly, I respect his effort because these are the people who are often left out of any real discourse.
I don’t think Obama is out of touch with the community. I think Obama tries to be all things to all people. He has good intentions though. Bless him lol
I think the choice of blogs speaks more to The Completely Bizarro world status of the Black Blogosphere.
Clearly the white house went on the basis of numbers in their selection of the blogs represented.
I can’t say that they should or shouldn’t have…mostly because Imtoo busy laughing at just WHAT MTO or Concrete Loop would REALLY do to aid the WH in the midterms.
I have to agree with Inkognegro and others who stated that the White House’s choices had to do with the audience size and not the content. In all the sites chosen they were sites that have huge audiences. They were going for volume. If they’d been shooting for influence over reach I think they would have gone in a different direction. There are a lot of influential black bloggers who help spark and steer debate, but they don’t have massive audiences. BUT their audience often includes other influencers (media folks, politicos, other writers and bloggers, etc.)
The only reason why this feels kind of annoying is because they wouldn’t necessarily go with size over influence with other media outlets. I doubt the White House would have invested much time in creating a relationship with Star Magazine or TV’s EXTRA over George Will and Rachel Maddow despite the mainstream popularity of gossip rags and entertainment TV.
Right…that’s what I thought of when I read the first commenter’s comment. Black folks aren’t the only ones who read a lot of gossip. That’s a western habit across the board. So choosing based on readership/reach isn’t the best excuse in this context. And you’re right, that strategy wouldn’t be applied to others. I think a lot of people would be enraged if they heard Perez Hilton was invited to the White House for any reason. I guess black gossip sites have just enough readership to make it into the WH but not enough to cause an alarm in the mainstream because most people don’t know they exist.
Also: One of my media consultant friends thinks they strategically went for people who don’t talk about politics often to establish a relationship, but made the mistake of not stating that’s what this was about, inadvertently offending people who happen to be both black and follow politics.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but the more I think about this summit, I can’t help but think that the WH KNEW that these blogs would spill the beans. I mean, COME ON -look who you invited! Look at the info that was spilled/leaked! -unsubstantial and of little consequence, just enough to get a couple headlines and make black bloggers look bad/unprofessional overall.
I don’t know what the implications of my theory would be, what the WH could stand to gain, or what their motivation would be in inviting gossip blogs only to have them leak info about the meeting, but I find it very hard to believe they invited a gaggle of gossip blogs, with full confidence that they would not gossip afterwards.
Someone said the same thing on The Atlantic web site but I just can’t figure out what they hoped to gain by having it leak. What do you think they wanted to gain? Did they get it?
I have no idea. The obvious answer would be to discredit black blogs, but I’m not quite ready to say that that’s what the WH wants lol
As an administration that ran one of the most effective and cross-generationally engaging campaigns America has ever seen, I highly doubt the meeting was a haphazardly calculated move. As many commentators have suggested, a meeting with MTO and the like was CLEARLY not intended to be a forum for serious dialogue on the Obama administration’s political policies. It was about the connection factor….tapping into the sheer volume of the captive audience.
Obama isn’t removed from the black community…(well atleast, this bloggers meeting isn’t the best example of any alleged disconnect). He knows there are reading negroes lol….to suggest otherwise would mean you believe its only non-educated black folk who are reading the YBF, concrete loop etc.
On the other hand, instinctively, it seems odd that someone who ran a campaign of that caliber, would need PR help from the YBF. Yet, when you think about it, Obamas campaign was successful because his message was simple, clear, and captivating. Now that he has to operate through the channels of the democratic message, he doesn’t really have “it” factor of the Obama-brand anymore. As you often highlight, the Democratic party’s message is jumbled.
Would they have invited TMZ for the same reasons…probably not. Thats because of the perception (and perhaps truth) that “more acceptable” news blogs/sources still have the same amount of readership volume that gossips sites do…or that white ppl going to gossips cites can be trusted to also go to credible news sources. Yeah, there’s a good number of politically-engaged black folks who also read MTO, but theres a hell of a lot more that stop reading after they’ve had their gossip fix for day.
One more thing….I think people should be less concerned that Obama is seeking to capture the ears of the “gossip demographic” and more concerned that “more acceptable” blogs dont get the same type of traffic.
Its kind of analagous to the anti-tyler perry movies crusade. At what point do you stop being mad at Tyler for producing certain types of content, and focus on the fact that he has MILLIONS of fans that see absolutely nothing wrong with what his approach.
I don’t know…I mean a lot of the gossip blogs are read by lots of young people. Plus, gossip blogs, unlike blogs that tackle more serious content aren’t competing as much with mainstream sites. If you read Post Bourgie for political commentary, you probably read the Atlantic too.
You mentioned that because Obama was effective in communications during the campaign season that this is probably a well-calculated move. Do you think he’s been effective in communications since becoming President?
Its not so much that content of his communication is problematic, but more so the frequency of it. When he was campaigning, it was more about branding himself…something that required constant, in your face, clear and concise messages about what he represented. Now that he’s in the WH, i think he’s allowed the branding piece to take a backseat to the extent that it conflicts with the type of leader he’s trying to be…non-reactive and sort-of unmoved by the fluxuations of the media. Its def. a gamble though.
Hate to be a broken record, but I don’t see any REASON whatsoever for engaging “Gossip” sites who’s main headlines everyday deal with “who caught a baller,” “who posted naked pictures up”, “who slept with what transsexual”, “who looks zesty” … I could go on, but I won’t.
Someone didn’t do their homework. If they did and still invited sites that mostly traffic in gossip, rumor, innuendo and blatant falsehoods that’s a reason for worry. Just because a site generates high traffic doesn’t mean that it deserves a PRIVATE meeting with the POTUS.
Disappointed.
“Someone didn’t do their homework.”
—
It’s hard for me to believe that they didn’t. There’s no way they didn’t know what these sites were about. I think this was a calculated move -to what end, I don’t know.
(lol @”who looks zesty”)
If I can just add another perspective to this debate. I don’t know if this whole episode was haphazard research by people who work in the WH or if they are trying to reach out to various outlets to get more exposure to a targeted demographic, but I must say, whatever the motivation, including *some* of these sites, is just smart, no matter which way you cut it. I personally don’t use gossip sites to get reliable information about political news, but I know plenty of people who are otherwise tuned out about what is going on day to day in Congress and with the WH, etc., but who frequently check the aforementioned sites. This is a fact. I have also noticed that since Obama’s inaugaration, sites such as Concrete Loop, Bossip, and YBF have included more political coverage in their stories and if someone in the WH (who happens to frequent such sites, or had the traffic numbers about who visits the sites), was trying to think of another way to reach out to an audience who may have tuned out of politics after the election, inviting some of the bloggers to the sites in order to tap into their audience is a smart, if not risky, idea.
Now, the objection from some seems to be that because Obama’s people included Black gossip sites in this sit down forum, the WH either a) doesn’t take the Black community seriously, b) only wants to use them for votes; or c) wants to avoid serious political discussions about the topics of the day. None of those explanations makes sense to me given the administration’s approach over the past couple of months in trying to reach out to new and diverse audiences. Look at what Obama has done so far with comparable programs/websites: he made appearances on both Letterman and Leno to discuss his policies — both late night comedy/gossip shows and not serious political programs, granted interviews to sports radio shows and sports commentary programs, sat down on the View to discuss his policies, and did a townhall forum that was hosted by MTV and BET — two networks that are focused on music programming and reality shows. And, to top it off, Obama has called on a blogger from Huffington Post during a news conference (the first time this ever happened). Now, the majority of HuffPost may discuss political issues, but there have been legitimate complaints that it is has become nothing more than a glossy online gossip magazine because of its coverage of entertainment stories in sensationalized ways. To me, if Obama can reach out to all of these different venues, which may or may not be credible or serious in the eyes of some, why can’t he also reach out to the aforementioned gossip sites?
I don’t know. I just view this issue differently from some, and I really don’t see the invitation of the sites to the forum as some kind of diss to the Black community as a whole. I will say though, the WH is playing with fire here. Some of the sites, most notably *Bossip*, uses some very inappropriate and at times offensive language to describe the people that they gossip about and inviting the site for a sit down may open the administration to charges that they agree with or condone Bossip’s views. I don’t think that it is true, but I could definitely see it as an issue later on.
[...] watching the debacle last week that unfolded after President Obama was embarassed by a group of Black bloggers with whom he met, I was reminded once again of the fact that we are sometimes needlessly critical [...]
Wow MTO though? If the Obama ADmin had someone searching these sites like they search info on political canidates then they might see that MTO printed thinga bout the pres cheating on his wife. MTO to me is the laughstock of Black Blogging.
To those who say that the WH knew exactly who they were inviting and still did so, I ask….
When was the last time any WH invite the National Enquirer or similar gossip rag to a private meeting with the President? Better yet when was the last time THIS WH invited the National Enquirer to the WH for a private meeting? Crickets. But yet we’ll accept that when it comes to US our channels should be a web-based gossip rag? What shouldn’t I be offended?