White House Encourages Viewing Own Stream of Speech

The broadcast and cable nets may be dropping regular programming to roadblock the President's jobs speech to a joint session of Congress Thursday night, but in an email to the White House press list Thursday, the administration was encouraging those journalists to watch the White House's own annotated live stream (WhiteHouse.gov/Jobs-Speech).

The White House will even include a post-speech panel, echoing the post-event punditry panel that has become the standard for cable news.

In the email titled "Jobs Speech Tonight at 7:00 p.m. EDT -- Watch Live," the White House says: "Make sure you watch the enhanced live stream of the speech with charts, graphs, and quick stats highlighting key points in the President's speech."

"Immediately following the President's speech," it said, "the White House will offer a live panel where policy experts from the White House will answer your questions," which can be submitted online.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.