White House Jumps on the Blog Train

The White House announced yesterday that it is entering into territory previously unknown in the bureaucratic, old-school world of Executive Branch communication strategy: the Blogosphere.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino is posting thoughts and updates on President Bush's trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the blog Trip Notes from the Middle East. An Associated Press story about the announcement says the new site is something they are experimenting with - Perino said it was "just a little bit of a blog." Other White House big wigs are to join Perino as co-authors in the coming days.

While the first post yesterday seemed to simply tout the company line and list the President's schedule, today's post showed readers a little more behind the scenes of what is involved in a trip like this. Still, they are going to have to open up a little more. If the White House wants to project more transparency (and eventually use the site to counter claims they believe they aren't getting a fair shake on), the authors should make a real effort to use the blog to present unique and exclusive information about the President's visit and all of the working pieces making his trip smooth and his communication of policy clean and clear. Eventually, they'll be able to use it as a strategic tool, but for now, a White House blog needs to make news to attract eyeballs. I'm looking forward to seeing upcoming posts and will write more thoughts about it next week.

On a separate note, we have our first on-call days this weekend for the Red Cross. It's been a busy week in the Midwest with unusually high temperatures leading to tornadoes, flooding and a lot of wind damage. Thankfully, things here in Illinois have calmed down. Here's hoping to a quiet, relieving weekend for our emergency workers.