THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release July 15, 2009
PRESS BRIEFING BY PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS
AND UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY JUDITH McHALE
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
3:27 P.M. EDT
MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon, folks. Before we get started with our regularly scheduled program, I want to bring to you guys a special guest, Judith McHale, who is Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, to discuss some of the efforts that we undertook to highlight the President's speech in Ghana throughout the continent of Africa -- a successful effort that she and her team worked closely on with members of the White House, including our media guys, Macon Phillips and Katie Stanton.
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Thank you, Robert. I'm delighted to be here with all of you today to talk about some of the exciting new initiatives that we're starting at the State Department.
As President Obama visited Ghana last weekend, U.S. ambassadors and State Department Public Diplomacy personnel created unprecedented engagement with people in Africa and around the world. We worked under the leadership of the White House and built on our initial experiments in new media global outreach at the time of the President's Cairo and Moscow speeches. We interacted directly with hundreds of thousands of people, helped the President to engage tens of millions, and showed the world that America listens and wants to engage.
This was a model of creative public diplomacy for the 21st century. I believe that it is embodied in what Secretary Clinton calls "smart power." We broke new ground in using technology to engage nontraditional audiences. The centerpiece was a creative White House initiative that bridged new media and old. Macon Phillips, Katie Stanton, and others at the White House Office of New Media should take a bow, as should the entire State Department team.
Before the speech, we set up an SMS, or texting service, throughout Africa and invited people to text the President in either English or French. Nearly 16,000 did so, from 87 countries in Africa and beyond. Our embassy in South Africa partnered with a mobile-based social networking site and garnered an additional 200,000 questions and comments from throughout the continent.
And as the President spoke on Saturday, we sent simultaneous SMS highlights of the speech to over 12,000 people in some 80 countries in French and English, and solicited their feedback via text message. We posted hundreds of those messages on America.gov, the State Department's Public Diplomacy Web site, and on whitehouse.gov.
In return, the President answered questions selected from this massive influx by three African journalists in a podcast that we dubbed into French, Swahili, Portuguese and Arabic, in addition to the original English. On the screens here behind me, I believe, you can see a visual representation of the words the President used in his speech and of the words used by those who texted him. We'll also show you what the questions looked like on the White House Web site.
So you can see this came out of the President's feed, and then the responses -- and you can see by the sort of prominence of the words, those which resonated with the community, obviously "Obama" being a huge one, but all the things -- and you can see -- if you focused on it, you see some of the concepts that came throughout his speech.
Next slide. Then what we did, because we wanted to continue this community, was a map of the world with comments popping up where they came so others could check in and could see how they were doing.
What made all this work were ambassadors and a corps of professional foreign service officers and locally engaged staff at embassies and consulates overseas. They provided the ideas and advice we needed to bridge our electronic efforts here with real live people overseas. And they carried out the face-to-face personal engagement that will always be the heart of successful public diplomacy.
Our overseas teams worked with local media to enable them to broadcast the President's speech and report on his trip to Ghana. They invited audiences to ambassadorial residences, cultural centers and movie theaters to view and discuss the speech. Ambassadors and public affairs officers led panel discussions and spoke to local and regional media to amplify the President's themes.
Here are just a few examples. Our embassy in Freetown gave micro-grants to dozens of cinema centers throughout Sierra Leone that showed the speech live, free of charge, to all comers, reaching thousands in even far-flung corners of the country.
Our Mission to the African Union in Addis Ababa invited 200 representatives of 53 African countries to a speech screening and discussion. In this hemisphere, in the Dominican Republic, our embassy hosted a screening of the speech with Spanish subtitles for university students and conducted a discussion afterwards. In Canada, our embassy and consulates actively reached out to the Afro-Canadian groups throughout the country.
Audience response, both in person and online, was overwhelmingly positive. Embassy anecdotes and SMS messages alike show that the President's speech and our efforts to help him engage with people struck a chord.
In Niger, which is currently going through a constitutional crisis, audience members at the embassy screening stood up during the speech and cried out, "He speaks for us." A young South African texted, "President Obama, I'm 20 years old, can't believe that we've actually been given this opportunity. Thank you." A Zimbabwean who had fled that country to Mozambique texted, "Thank you, sir, for that uplifting speech." He went on to say, "I will stay and contribute to the democratic reforms in my country of Zimbabwe."
I think that the enthusiasm of Africans, especially young people, to use technology to engage with us shows the very potential and promise of the continent that the President stressed in his speech. Africans are as technologically capable and eager for connections with the world as any people on Earth.
I'm proud that the State Department could partner with the White House to help the President build a conversation with citizens in Africa and beyond, creating and sustaining the kind of global dialogue that, as Secretary Clinton said today in her speech, makes America a smarter and stronger nation.
Thank you very much.
Q How are you going to keep using this list? If you have 16,000 phone numbers now, what are they going to be getting?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Well, it's actually not 16,000. It is about 250,000 e-mail addresses that we have. And one of the things that I'm very committed to, and I think it's critical to do it, is to have an ongoing involvement with them. So we're developing a variety of ways to reach out and continue that discussion.
We received several -- I think about 100,000 different comments and questions going through those -- some of them we're posting online. And we're going to continue to identify, when you looked at that analysis of the words that were used, we can begin to see communities which are groupings. So if we identify individuals who are -- we're going to be building communities around themes -- those who are interested in the topic of democracy, we would set up discussion forums for them to be able to participate in education and other things. So we're continuing to do that, because, to me, that's a critical component of what we're trying to do, is to build these networks and continue to sustain them by providing them information about topics that they're interested in.
MR. GIBBS: Margaret.
Q Do you know whether past administrations have had databases of non-Americans, of foreigners, to use for diplomatic purposes and how they were collected?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: I don't know. Sorry, I don't have an answer.
Q You mentioned engaging with tens of millions of people. Can you just go over that math?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: How did we do it? Well, online we had about 250,000. But in Africa, it was a great sort of matching of new and old technologies, so one of the things we did -- obviously, the feed went out live and was carried by television networks throughout Africa. But radio is such a predominant -- it is one of the predominant media still in Africa, so what we did -- the speech went out live, but we also did this podcast. So when we received the 250,000 questions that came in, we had three African journalists who went through about 100,000 of those questions, I believe, to sort them out -- came up with a number of questions for the President to answer.
We submitted them to the President. He answered them on a podcast, which was recorded. The podcast was both downloaded online, but it was also transmitted -- in many cases by bicycle, frankly -- to radio stations and broadcast on radio stations.
So we've been aggregating the data of all the outlets that we reached, and we're in the process of continuing to refine that. But basically, it was the combined reach of online -- of traditional media -- radio, television -- and online.
Q Adds up to tens of millions?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Yes, absolutely.
Q Did you coordinate the effort with the local governments? Do you think this coordination is needed?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: I think we -- I'm not exactly certain of the answers to whether we did it, but we were able to certainly work with our posts, and I think where it was appropriate and they felt like they wanted to do that, they did. I know that there were many government officials who were invited to the embassy viewing events. So certainly they knew about it and there was a lot of support for our efforts. There was not any resistance that I know of -- so, yes.
Q Do you have any feedback from the governments in the region?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: I have not heard anything specifically myself.
Q Can you tell us anything about the State Department's efforts to disseminate his speech in Moscow, since that was --
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Certainly.
Q -- not broadcast widely live?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: That's correct. One of the things that we're looking at, and I think it's an important point, is that each of these events that we want to do we want to tailor it specifically for the event. In the case of Moscow, we did have public diplomacy outreach, but it was more regional. Given the nature of the speech, we felt it was more appropriate to be a regional outreach, and so we did a variety of things.
We had a texting initiative that we did around the Moscow speech. We also have developed a Facebook community and following, which is really interesting, because we launched it following up on Cairo, and we found the group migrated with us to Moscow and is continuing to grow. It grew about 25 percent with the Africa initiative. So Facebook became a key component -- but also understanding what were the tools that the individuals in that region were using, which was somewhat different. And so we had a presence on the applicable tools there. And we're going to continue to do that.
Q Regionally, are you talking about Russia, former Soviet Union, or even wider than that?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: It was primarily Russia and some of the adjacent countries is where we went to for the Moscow speech.
MR. GIBBS: Mark.
Q What was the amount of the micro grant to the movie theaters to show the speech, do you know?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: No, I don't know. I know it was not a lot of money. But they basically -- I thought it was a very innovative approach, where they basically went out and contracted with cinemas for people to go for free. But I don't believe it was a significant amount of money. When they call it "micro grant," I'm taking them at their word.
Q What's your operation's budget?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Our total budget for this initiative?
Q No, for --
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: For public diplomacy?
Q Right.
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: You know, I'm relatively new to my job, so can I answer that in a couple more weeks? (Laughter.)
Q Just to follow up on Jonathan's question, should we assume that if the -- I mean, what was the number of outreach in Russia? I mean, you're here to talk about all the great outreach you did with the Africa speech. It does -- does it seem that the outreach didn't -- wasn't as effective?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: No, I think it was very effective in the --
Q How do you know, measure-wise? Do you have the numbers?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: I don't have the specific numbers with me, but what we are doing is analyzing what were the targeted audience that we were trying to reach within the region, and understanding -- I mean, in Moscow, we were basically using new media. So it was not a television/radio kind of outreach effort. I don't think we have the numbers. Do you have the numbers for -- I don't have them with me.
Q I mean, just a --
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: We're checking --
Q We got a public briefing on Cairo, a pre-briefing on --but we have not gotten a big briefing on the Moscow --
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: My guess would be we're talking in the thousands for that.
MR. GIBBS: They tend to be a little skeptical. (Laughter.)
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Oh, you tend to be a little skeptical? (Laughter.)
Q -- between the lines of information, information, no information.
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: You know what, we can get you that information. But I would tell you that the answer is in the thousands, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands, just given the nature of what we were trying to do there.
Q Is the goal here to create a global database of foreign citizens around the world from different regions to poll together? And if so, what do you intend, or what do you anticipate doing in terms of reaching out to them in the months and years ahead? And what will you be sending to these people? What's the strategy?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: The strategy is one which I think is very consistent with the President's strategy and the strategy of the Secretary of State, which is to actually reach out to reengage, if you will, and connect with citizens all over the world; to listen to them, to understand what is on their minds so that as we sort of move forward together to face all the challenges that we're facing, we have the basis of a conversation and dialogue.
So that is, frankly, the basis of what we're trying to do. The follow-up for it, and the strategy -- because a key part, as I said earlier, is to keep them engaged -- is to continue to provide content and information which is of value to them, things which they want to receive, information which they are seeking, and engage them in that dialogue. There's so many issues that I think face us collectively and the challenges that face us, so we're going to be a stronger --
Q -- do that around the world.
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: We are doing that around the world. That is correct. That is the challenge.
Q Just a quick question. How do you guard against only reaching the elites if you're using these new media methods?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Well, we're not just using new media. One of the points that I wanted to make in the Africa situation is that new media will work in certain places, but it's a tool, not a strategy. And I believe that quite passionately. And so we're going to use it where appropriate to reach certain targeted demographics. But, frankly, in the case of Africa, we had free cinemas, we had radio outreach. We understand -- we know very well that throughout Africa, radio is the predominant media.
And so we were very careful to be sure that the speech was accessible to the largest population by understanding what is the media infrastructure in each country. And it's one of the strengths of the embassies, is that they understand that and they report it to us, and we tailor each of these initiatives to the available infrastructure.
So it's designed to reach sort of less-affluent populations. It is designed to reach deep into these countries. And I think if you got to read some of the questions, you would be pretty amazed at the reactions that we got and the feedback that we got from our embassies. It reached very, very deep into these areas.
Q How did that work with radio?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: How did it work with radio?
Q Yes.
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Well, two things: One, the speech went out live. Secondly, we had a podcast, so people had sent in questions; the President answered questions. We downloaded the podcast. The embassies actually transferred it to a disk and bicycled it to local radio stations throughout Africa. I mean, that's literally the way it was done. And it is continuing to play now. So it has gotten multiple plays, and it's continuing to play.
Q How did you kind of assess the Cairo effort now that there's been some time between? Are you -- you said you wanted to kind of continue the dialogue --
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Right.
Q Is that continuing? And then are we going to get copies of the slides you showed?
MR. GIBBS: We can get you copies of those.
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Each of these -- we're learning more and more as we do them, which is sort of the fun thing about doing it. And compared to -- Cairo was the global initiative. This one was probably -- had a slightly different focus; it was primarily Africa and throughout Europe where we saw the African diaspora. So it was slightly -- we had a slightly different initiative to it. And we're learning on each and every case.
But the key for me is, as we go through this, A, to learn, to be sure that we get better at what we're doing and constantly evolving it, and we've got great folks helping us out in doing that; and secondly, to be sure that we don't just -- this is not just a one-off with these folks, so that when they come in -- they sort of come to engage with us, that we continue to follow up.
And so we have a number of programs in place that we're going to continue to do that. Our technology infrastructure is constantly evolving so that we're able to continue that engagement because, to me, that's the absolute critical thing that we're going to have to do.
Q What I was getting at is, are you still getting people engaging on the Cairo speech?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Yes, absolutely. And because -- but that's an effort on our part to do that, to reach out, to sort of provide them with the information and subjects that they want to engage on. But it is absolutely a key part of what we're doing. So we've developed discussion rooms that they can join, and we're trying to sort of understand the things that they're interested in and be sure that we actually are responding to that to keep them alive. And we're going to keep that discussion going.
And the other thing that we want to do is to inject new content into that conversation, so if we see they're interested in energy or the environment, bringing in experts who could help facilitate that conversation.
Q Is this series of speeches to be continued? Like an obvious geographic gap is China and Asia in general.
MR. GIBBS: Well, we'll be there soon enough. (Laughter.)
Q My question, is there a comparable effort here in the United States -- maybe it's a question for you, Robert -- and if so, who's in charge of it? Who's building the domestic database?
MR. GIBBS: Well, there are people that obviously e-mail questions to the White House Web site, sign up for e-mail alerts, are notified of goings-on of the administration, initiatives, recovery plan, things like that. There's a -- I mentioned Macon Phillips and Katie Stanton, who are on our new media team, who help obviously not only domestically, but also internationally, in reaching out in order to let people know what we're doing.
Q Do we know how big that base has built up to?
MR. GIBBS: Several million from the last time I checked. I don't have an exact number. But the amount of traffic that we have gotten -- and I have some better slides on this back in the office -- we've seen an exponential jump in the amount of traffic overall, since the inauguration, of people seeking information. And obviously, if you look at the Web site that has been revamped, we did it in a way that we hoped was user-friendly, that we could drive as many people as had questions about stuff that was going on to a very user-friendly site.
Q Would we be concerned if a foreign government were collecting e-mail addresses of Americans and hoping to keep them engaged in the future?
MR. GIBBS: It's probably no more different than to sign up for e-mail updates at rollcall.com.
Q Well, that's a smart answer, but you want to answer the question? It's clever, but is there any concern --
MR. GIBBS: No, it's both smart and a factual answer.
Q Well, is there any concern that a foreign government -- setting this precedent of foreign governments collecting e-mail addresses of citizens of, say, this country, and then keeping them informed in their own way about what they're doing?
MR. GIBBS: If somebody e-mails the government of South Africa and has a question about their policies, and that Web-site has the ability for somebody to sign up for continual updates in order to get engaged, I'll let each of the 300-or-so-million people in this country that seek information from that to do so voluntarily. Nobody is being forced to give out their e-mail addresses. And obviously, the President is deeply concerned about cyber-security and keeping privacy concerns, as they are at rollcall, very protective.
Yes, sir.
Q On Afghanistan, how do you plan to engage public diplomacy in Afghanistan and Pakistan --
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: I'm sorry, I couldn't hear the question.
Q In Afghanistan and Pakistan, how do you plan to use public diplomacy to win over the people?
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Well, in every country in the world, we have a pretty active public diplomacy program and plan. And in both of those countries, which I've been sort of looking at quite intensely recently, we have a number of public diplomacy initiatives in each of those countries, appropriate to the country. So, for example, in Pakistan, we have, as you probably know, a very robust exchange program. We have more Fulbright students coming from Pakistan than anywhere else in the world. We have high school students coming over from Pakistan. So there are a number of initiatives that we will continue to do that.
Same thing in Afghanistan, where a lot of our efforts are focused on building Afghan capacity to sort of deal in a lot of different areas. So we have very aggressive plans and programs in both of those countries, and we have public diplomacy initiatives in every country in the world.
MR. GIBBS: All right, thank you.
UNDER SECRETARY McHALE: Okay, thank you.
