HomeUploadUpload DirectHotlinkRandomAbouttheme toggle

Michael Shaw on Crafting the President's Image

Views: 915
"I am who the media says I am. I say what they say I say. I become who they say I've become."—Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, 2006.

"Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."—Barack Obama, 2009.

Which Barack Obama is telling the truth here? Writing as a U.S. senator from Illinois, Obama laments that there will always be a barrier—the independent media—between him and the people he serves. As a public figure, his identity will be created by reporters and critics that he cannot control, distorted by the lenses of photographers who don't answer directly to him.

Only three years later, as commander in chief, President Obama took a far more trusting tone with the media. In his earliest speeches, he promised an administration of unparalleled openness, access, and integrity. Indeed, he asserted he was running "the most transparent administration in history" just four months before Edward Snowden spilled the beans on the National Security Agency.

"The White House has effectively become a broadcast company," says Michael Shaw, publisher of Bagnewsnotes.com, a site dedicated to the analysis of news images. Shaw explains how strategically composed photos, taken by official White House photographers, travel from social media sites that are controlled by the administration to the front pages of newspapers around the world.

The press publishes the official White House photographs because independent photographers and videographers are increasingly barred from covering the president. This practice has diminished the power of the independent media as an exclusive distribution channel while empowering official photographers such as Pete Souza, who are on the presidential payroll.

And so, says Shaw, the public has been fed a steady diet of whatever kind of president the news cycle demands. When conspiracy theorists questioned Obama's patriotism, we saw images of Obama the American everyman. To celebrate the anniversary of Rosa Parks' 1955 refusal to move to the back of a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, we saw Obama reenact her famous image. Time and again, we see Obama striking poses out of John F. Kennedy's repertoire. The official White House photographers have created a presidential identity for every conceivable occasion—as long as the image is flattering, and almost always, larger than life.

While presidents have always sought to control their image, Shaw and many in the press say that Obama has restricted media access to an unparalleled degree. As the AP's director of photography wrote last year in The New York Times, the Obama administration has "systematically tried to bypass the media by releasing a sanitized visual record of his activities through official photographs and videos, at the expense of independent journalistic access."

Media boycotts of official photographs have been ineffective in persuading the president to live up to his promise of transparency. It is only by a tradition of public openness, not law, that photographers have enjoyed access to the official business of the president. So we could revert to the practice before the JFK administration, when photographers were mostly kept away from the inner workings of the White House.

Short of generating public outrage, there is little the independent media can do. "Because the White House can distribute directly through all these different new and old media channels," says Shaw, "there's really not much downside to it, there's not much accountability."

All over the world, heads of state are producing idealized versions of their own identities on social media, a technology that empowers leaders every bit as much as the rest of us. Heads of state and politicians are increasingly free to project their own self-image directly to the public, with less accountability than ever from an independent press. From the White House on YouTube to Ten Downing Street on Flickr to Bashar al-Assad's Instagram page, we may never see our politicians in the way that we did just a few years ago.

Runs 5:44.

Produced by Todd Krainin.

Go to http://reason.com/reasontv/2014/05/09/reality-show-president-inside-the-white for downloadable versions and subscribe to ReasonTV's YouTube Channel to receive notifications when new material goes live.
@ReasonVidsfollow
Thumbnail for The Two-Million-Dollar Teacher: An Online Marketplace Empowers Educators & Lets Them Earn Big $$$2:46
The Two-Million-Dollar Teacher: An Online Marketplace Empowers Educators & Lets Them Earn Big $$$
ReasonVids
791 views
Thumbnail for Do We Know the Real McCain?1:06
Do We Know the Real McCain?
ReasonVids
831 views
Thumbnail for Matt Welch: Which McCain Is Showing Up at the RNC?2:17
Matt Welch: Which McCain Is Showing Up at the RNC?
ReasonVids
929 views
Thumbnail for Obamacare, Mandates and Regulatory Confusion: Reason-Rupe Poll Results with Emily Ekins6:39
Obamacare, Mandates and Regulatory Confusion: Reason-Rupe Poll Results with Emily Ekins
ReasonVids
816 views
Thumbnail for This is How the Military is Supposed to Recruit | Grunt Speak 7:12
This is How the Military is Supposed to Recruit | Grunt Speak
Terrence Popp
1245 views
Thumbnail for The Shocking Secret Government Watchlisting Guide: The Intercept's Ryan Devereaux7:14
The Shocking Secret Government Watchlisting Guide: The Intercept's Ryan Devereaux
ReasonVids
814 views
Thumbnail for CIA Covered Up The Earth's Catastrophe Cycle10:17
CIA Covered Up The Earth's Catastrophe Cycle
AOUisgay
486 views
Thumbnail for Why Does Kenny G Drive Critics Crazy?7:17
Why Does Kenny G Drive Critics Crazy?
ReasonVids
866 views
Thumbnail for How Bitcoin Could Replace the U.S. Dollar1:01:34
How Bitcoin Could Replace the U.S. Dollar
ReasonVids
665 views
Thumbnail for Former FEC Chairman on McCain and Campaign Finance9:59
Former FEC Chairman on McCain and Campaign Finance
ReasonVids
747 views
Thumbnail for Reason's Secret Recipe for Nutrient-Rich Coverage of the Trump Era0:58
Reason's Secret Recipe for Nutrient-Rich Coverage of the Trump Era
ReasonVids
936 views
Thumbnail for What’s Really in Your Fish Oil? Labdoor's Market-Based Approach to Taming the Supplement Industry.7:21
What’s Really in Your Fish Oil? Labdoor's Market-Based Approach to Taming the Supplement Industry.
ReasonVids
890 views
Thumbnail for How Obama's War on Drugs Destroys Legal Immigrant Families4:25
How Obama's War on Drugs Destroys Legal Immigrant Families
ReasonVids
846 views
Thumbnail for Remy: Trigger (Michael Jackson Thriller Parody)3:07
Remy: Trigger (Michael Jackson Thriller Parody)
ReasonVids
743 views
Thumbnail for How Sugar Subsidies Ruin Halloween3:18
How Sugar Subsidies Ruin Halloween
ReasonVids
880 views
Thumbnail for How Prohibition Made Pot More Potent: Q&A with Auburn University's Mark Thornton5:18
How Prohibition Made Pot More Potent: Q&A with Auburn University's Mark Thornton
ReasonVids
729 views
Thumbnail for Obama's New New Deal: As bad as the old new deal?4:06
Obama's New New Deal: As bad as the old new deal?
ReasonVids
873 views
Thumbnail for What do you think about the blacks?0:30
What do you think about the blacks?
bestofupgoat
62 views
Thumbnail for troop inspection0:09
troop inspection
bestofupgoat
175 views
Thumbnail for No Apologies - Oscar Turner3:46
No Apologies - Oscar Turner
OscarTurnerArchive
1758 views
Thumbnail for The Government Is Going to Shut Down Again (and That's Bad)4:47
The Government Is Going to Shut Down Again (and That's Bad)
ReasonVids
841 views
Thumbnail for Whole Foods' John Mackey: Why Intellectuals Hate Capitalism15:52
Whole Foods' John Mackey: Why Intellectuals Hate Capitalism
ReasonVids
824 views
Thumbnail for The Story of Aaron Swartz: "The Internet's Own Boy" Director Q&A8:01
The Story of Aaron Swartz: "The Internet's Own Boy" Director Q&A
ReasonVids
875 views
Thumbnail for She's upset. Choooo chooo, chug chug chug chug, ding ding, ding, whooo whooo!4:50
She's upset. Choooo chooo, chug chug chug chug, ding ding, ding, whooo whooo!
bestofvoatxyz
779 views
Thumbnail for The New World Order: I Thought that Was Just a Conspiracy Theory? (21:04) ~ Computing Forever21:05
The New World Order: I Thought that Was Just a Conspiracy Theory? (21:04) ~ Computing Forever
bestofsaidit
718 views

points

Permalink
Reply
photography (invention), white house (building), barack obama (us president), propaganda, kennedy family (family), todd krainin, libertarian, reason (periodical), president of the united states (ontology class), pete souza, michelle obama (lawyer), thomas jefferson (us president), annie leibovitz (visual artist)
TOS  •  Add Keywords  •  Donate  •   Analytics  •   DMCA  •   Puzzle