Politico.com

This is the first time i have heard a President promote a political website. He did it, perhaps inadvertantly, at his press conference. One wonders if the website has a conservitive or liberal bias. I rather think that the promotion was unintentional ... but in any case it was worth a million bucks of advertising ... and certainly qualifies for a firsts.

Here is a transcript ...

source: whitehouse.gov

THE PRESIDENT: Michael. Michael, who do you work for? (Laughter.)

Q Mr. President, I work for Politico.com.

THE PRESIDENT: Pardon me? Politico.com?

Q Yes, sir. Today. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: You want a moment to explain to the American people exactly what -- (laughter.)

Q Mr. President, thank you for the question. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Quit being so evasive.

Q You should read it.

THE PRESIDENT: Is it good? You like it?

Q David Gregory --

THE PRESIDENT: David Gregory likes it. I can see the making of a testimonial. (Laughter.) Anyway, go ahead, please.

The story here of course is whether this was intentional promotion or not ... seems to me that there must be some vetting process for reporters who the president calls upon ... so why did bush not know who he worked for? I actually do not wish to imply any inappropriate intent here ... one way or the other ... i am just very curious how events consipered for this free promo to have happened.
Call it a learning process for a would-be promoter

Comments

Seth says

M 2007-02-14 10:18:48 6067

Citation for Bush's use ? I can't find it here.

You might need to wait for the recording and transcript to hit whitehouse.gov. Bush called on a correspondant and then asked him who he worked for. It was a funny moment and politico.com got a lot of mileage from it. Would only that fb be so luckey. Btw, i doubt that it was intentional on the president's part ... but one way or the other it does make for an interesting story.

Seth says
Politoco.com is running the clip right now in the upper right corner of their front page. And the're off and running ...

Seth says

The election as a reality show

Mark de LA says

seth 2007-02-14 11:15:39 6067

The election as a reality show

Yep I saw that & thought it mostly a jest. I prefer some of the ideas, like a test, a la url http://votesmart.com or my flushgov.net

Mark de LA says

That fact that David Gregory likes it makes it smell like the left. Maybe that calls for some

OTOH, I didn't find anything on the face of politico that suggests that is anywhere near the NY Times.

Seth says
Yeah, i actually prefer political places where the site managers don't select according to a bias. I've found memeorandum.com selects pretty even handedly from both sides of the aisle.

Mark de LA says

I tend to think that Bush noticed a new participant in the press gaggle & that was his way of welcoming him. Possibly, the novelty of a blogger in the midst was a nudge to the mainstream media as well.

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