During Tuesday’s fawning Today show special at the White House, President Obama’s chief digital officer Jason Goldman appeared on the broadcast and congratulated the hosts for serving as a propaganda tool for the administration: “I think you guys do this really well with the Today show. You know, the stuff you've been doing this morning, showing stuff behind the scenes is really great...and I think it’s the kind of thing that people look for.”
That praise was prompted by co-host Matt Lauer touting: “Twitter recently released a list of its most re-tweeted tweets of 2015....from President Obama, we got in here on the list his reaction to the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling last year. And another moment that went viral, the President surprised some tourists on his way to a meeting. Why do you think moments like that get so much attention?”
Goldman replied: “I think fundamentally the internet’s a platform for human conversation, people are looking to connect, and authentic moments like that are a great opportunity to see something behind the lens, to see the real people behind scenes.” He then cited Today’s Obama infomercial as a “good example” of that.
The main purpose of Goldman’s appearance was to make an “exclusive announcement” on the morning show to urge viewers to watch the President on social media: “We recently launched the President's Facebook page and tonight we're going to be doing our first experiment with Facebook live. So you’ll be able to see the President live talk about what he's thinking about for the State of the Union sometime in the afternoon.”
As Politico reported on Tuesday, all of it was part of the White House strategy “to come up with novel ways of using secondary media to deliver the message.” Reporter Sarah Wheaton gushed: “Even by the standards of this social media-savvy White House, aides are launching an unprecedented campaign for the attention of the next generation, the millennials. If they do it right, this generation could talk about Obama like boomers talk about Kennedy and Reagan.”
Here is a full transcript of Goldman on the January 12 Today:
8:13 AM ET
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: We want to bring in a special guest, Jason Goldman is the chief digital officer here at the White House. Jason, good morning. Thank you for having us. Well, you have some news to share about a partnership with Facebook tonight in connection with the State of the Union, tell us.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Social Media & State of the Union; White House Making Exclusive Announcement on Today]
JASON GOLDMAN: That’s right. We recently launched the President's Facebook page and tonight we're going to be doing our first experiment with Facebook live. So you’ll be able to see the President live talk about what he's thinking about for the State of the Union sometime in the afternoon.GUTHRIE: Okay.
MATT LAUER: Jason, Twitter recently released a list of its most re-tweeted tweets of 2015. The first one was One Direction. Okay.
GOLDMAN: Alright, that’s hard to compete with.
LAUER: The second one, also One Direction. The third one, One Direction. Number four was One Direction also. But from President Obama, we got in here on the list his reaction to the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling last year. And another moment that went viral, the President surprised some tourists on his way to a meeting. Why do you think moments like that get so much attention?
GOLDMAN: I think fundamentally the internet’s a platform for human conversation, people are looking to connect, and authentic moments like that are a great opportunity to see something behind the lens, to see the real people behind scenes. I think you guys do this really well with the Today show. You know, the stuff you've been doing this morning, showing stuff behind the scenes is really great, a good example of that, and I think it’s the kind of thing that people look for.
GUTHRIE: And this is the new normal, the way that the President and the White House staff are all using social media, whether it's Twitter – I know the White House just opened up a Snapchat account, which officially makes Snapchat legit.
GOLDMAN: That’s right. That’s right, we started that yesterday and we've been posting some snaps here this morning, sneakily some of you guys, as you've been recording here on the White House. And it's a way of showing, you know, what's going on here at the White House as we're getting ready for SOTU and getting ready for the State of the Union. Everyone’s really excited and Snapchat’s a great way to show that energy.
LAUER: He just went a little initial on us there.
GUTHRIE: SOTU.
GOLDMAN: A little acronym.
LAUER: We got it. Jason, thank you so much.
GOLDMAN: Yeah, thank you very much.
