White House breaks own State of the Union embargo for online audience

The White House posted the entire text of President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address on the internet on Tuesday, breaking its own media embargo in an unprecedented decision that put the entire speech online before the president even began.

The Obama administration used the website Medium to publish a copy of the text, climaxing weeks of media previews and a growing use of social media by the White House that circumvents reporters and the filter of the press.

Aides and staffers as prominent as senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer have led the online charge, using YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, gifs and videos to go directly to a more internet-savvy audience, targeting young people in particular.

For weeks, the White House has previewed the proposals and key points of the president’s speech online. On 8 January the White House pre-empted the president’s education speech scheduled for the next day by posting a video, shot on Air Force One and published on the White House site and on YouTube, airing Obama’s new plan to provide free education at community colleges for eligible students.

A day earlier, Pfeiffer explained this strategy in an op-ed, also on Medium, calling the previews “SOTU Spoilers”. Pfeiffer also wrote about primary points of Obama’s speech, including the emphasis on an increasingly robust economy and decreasing unemployment. Senior administration officials – and even Obama himself – also previewed some details of a new plan to increase taxes on the super wealthy in order to pay for middle-class tax cuts.

With its Twitter and Facebook accounts, the Obama administration has used hashtags not so much to preview points as make them explicit. The sallies to cross the trending threshold include: #BetterBroadband for increased internet access; #CyberSecurity for a push to overhaul the way companies and US security agencies share information; and #FamiliesSucceed for increased paid-sick leave, especially for parents.

Administrations, businesses and the military use press embargoes to ask journalists to not report on news or speeches until a designated time; in exchange for cooperation, institutions provide more access to information or advance copies of texts. Before Tuesday’s speech, for instance, the Guardian, the New York Times and the Washington Post all published excerpts of the address after an embargo on them passed about two hours before Obama took the podium.

The Obama administration has had an at times contentious relationship with the press, and sought for years to employ alternate media to reach Americans. Another reason for the increasing online outreach may be that television viewership of the state of the union address has fallen steadily for years, as have ratings for TV in general.