Date: Friday, October 16, 2009
By:

The Obama administration, perhaps the most media-savvy White House in history, is now in the publishing business - and exclusively for black audiences.

The first edition of “The White House Wire: News for the African American Community,” an occasional newsletter that is designed specifically for black Americans, was released this week to mixed reviews.

The first installment of the newsletter featured a mix of news releases and links to the White House Web site including, Obama’s passage of a Senate committee health care bill, a Navy ship named for a civil rights activist, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s speech at Howard University; Obama’s affordable housing program and Obama’s Thursday visit to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

Corey Ealons, a spokesman for the White House, told BlackAmericaWeb.com the newsletter has no original content but is “one-stop shopping information for what is happening at the White House and agencies throughout the administration.”

The new online newsletter - believed to be the first of its kind at the White House - has been praised in some quarters, but has also generated criticism from several black journalists who view the “wire” as a strategic move by the Obama administration to manage the news without answering the hard questions.

“We’re being snookered,” DeWayne Wickham, a columnist with USA Today and a former president of The National Assocication of Black Journalists, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. 

“It’s part of a pattern,” said Wickham, who writes often about politics and race. “They used black journalists for their needs during the campaign, and when they were able to move beyond Rev. Wright and move beyond race, they didn’t need us anymore.”

Wickham, an outspoken journalist who has both criticized and praised Obama over the past eight months, said Obama promised to meet with black columnists at the Democratic National Convention last year, but it never happened.

“They devalue black journalists who have a reputation of raising issues of importance to the black community,” Wickham said.

Several other black journalists said they prefer to adopt a wait-and-see position, explaining that they want to observe how the newsletter evolves before passing judgment.

But Wickham said the White House needs less spin control of its message and more straight talk from Obama on issues that impact blacks - and he said black journalists cannot give Obama a pass simply because he’s black.

Wickham said Obama has not specifically addressed closing the achievement gap between black and white students, closing the black unemployment gap – that has now skyrocketed to 15 percent – or talked to reporters in detail about his plan to overhaul urban America.

“There’s a fear they will have to answer these questions,” Wickham said. “They run from those kinds of issues.”

The White House had no official comment on Wickham’s remarks, but one Capitol Hill staffer pointed out that the White House did invite a group of black journalists to meet with Obama on Air Force One this summer and said Obama has granted interviews to Ebony and BET.

Meanwhile, Ealons explained that the “White House Wire” is simply an opportunity for the Obama administration to share news of interest to African Americans – important news, he said, that black Americans need to know.