Add Your Voice to Ask the President

President Obama's calling on Huffington Post online reporter Sam Stein at a press conference in February gave activists hope that the reign of the Beltway Villagers over presidential communication might be ripe for toppling. The Nation has a way we can make that happen.

On his first day in office, President Obama pledged to make his administration "the most open and transparent in history." Americans can already see more of their government--from splashy slide shows of Oval Office meetings to newly declassified memos about the executive's wartime powers. Unlike Obama's dynamically interactive campaign, however, WhiteHouse.gov does not foster much meaningful dialogue with citizens. At least not yet.

Obama can go much further to deliver on his promise. He took a small step in February by fielding a question from a Huffington Post reporter at his first press conference. Yet advancing a connected, engaged citizenry requires more than acknowledging the rise of online media. Here is one tradition that Obama could start: invite new and independent voices into the East Room by pledging to take a citizen-generated question at every prime-time press conference.

To put this idea into action--and give the busy White House something tangible to work with--The Nation is teaming up with a broad coalition of new and traditional media, including the Washington Times and the Personal Democracy Forum, to begin gathering questions from you, the public.

You can suggest questions and vote on the questions you'd like President Obama to answer at Ask the President.

After public voting, the coalition will select and send a credentialed journalist to attend the next presidential press conference, ready to choose from the list of the most popular citizen questions. (This journalist would focus only on these questions from citizens and would not reduce the time available for the standing pool of White House reporters.) The precise question will not be announced in advance, though the choices will obviously be public. At the press conference, the journalist can choose from the top questions, prioritizing a topic that is substantive, factual and that has not already been addressed by the president.

This assumes, of course, that President Obama agrees to participate.

The East Room press conferences are among the most exclusive and least democratic public gatherings in American politics; the White House controls who attends and who gets called on. So the coalition is appealing directly to the Obama administration to admit and call on the journalist armed with citizen questions. Obama has repeatedly pledged a more innovative, interactive government. Wide public engagement in "Ask the President"--and strong political support for Obama's participation--can make that pledge a reality.

Read the whole thing, and post your question/video at Ask the President today.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....