Posted on 11/03/2013 4:14:11 PM PST by tsowellfan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Besieged by unflattering stories about the launch of President Barack Obama's healthcare program, the White House saw a news report that it wanted to swiftly knock down.
It was from NBC, which said that Obama had overpromised when he said Americans who liked their insurance could keep it, and that the president knew that many people would see their coverage change.
White House officials quickly began firing off a barrage of tweets on Twitter, which has become one of the administration's most potent and relied-upon weapons in trying to shape public opinion and media reports.
Josh Earnest, the principal deputy press secretary to Obama, began the assault with a series of tweets that said the healthcare law did protect Americans against changes in their coverage - unless insurers altered such coverage.
"NBC 'scoop' cites normal turnover in the indiv insurance market," Earnest tweeted to his 9,500 followers on Twitter.
The message was retweeted 166 times, potentially reaching another 164,000 people, according to Twitonomy, a Twitter analytics tool.
During the next hour, White House staffers would tweet and retweet messages about the story more than a dozen times, including tweets directly to the NBC reporter.
The debate continues over whether Obama has been misleading about the healthcare law. But it's clear that in many ways, Twitter has become as important in the West Wing's communications arsenal as daily press briefings...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
They used social media and an email blitz very effectively to get him elected. As I recall Obama was crowned Marketer of the Year. No resume, just a marketing campaign.
Blame the insurance companies. How convenient.
Yes ignore that social media.
Because that’s where 90% of folks under 30 get their info.
And we sure don’t want them to be hearing from FReepers.
Leave those channels to the Progressives!
Yup. The plan was to blame the insurance companies and then push for “single payer” aka full-blown nationalized/socialized medicine.
Plan does not appear to be working. They jumped the shark, and their lies are being largely ignored and/or mocked except by the truly stupid.
There are others using the same social media against him (check this guy out)
Obama Racist Against His White Cousin In The Tea Party
I never knew Humpty Dumpty was a true story.
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I don’t understand.
It is not hard to develop a following of several thousand followers on twitter. Just find conservatives (easy to to do by reading their tweets) and block idiots. Viewing other followers of fellow conservatives is easy to do and twitter also sends you suggestions of followers of followers. (confused yet?)
Many times I see an article here on FR that is not in the MSM and tweet the link to it. We are an insular little community here. Twitter is a better opportunity to educate those who are about to feel real pain due to the idiot in chief’s admin.
Never ‘tweeted’ here either. This sounds like work being done by Obamanite useless eaters. Not worth their salt but how much you wanna bet they’ve got top-tier Blue Cross, the f*****s.
I wouldn’t call it conspiracy minded at all.
Conservatives are probably a minority in the gamer forums which makes a great place to propagandize.
You are absolutely correct. We ignore social media at our peril. Been saying it for years.
HSUS has successfully used social media along with its misleading ads to make the uninformed public believe that this organization of animal radicals is some big damn puppy and kitty rescue. HSUS has its own little social media quick response team that reacts to any negative media coverage.
They look like twits all right. Or heavily subsidized, party-loving grasshoppers Nanzi was so happy to guarantee free health care to.
Oops, I ended that sentence a preposition with.
‘Walking Dead’s on. Hasta la.
Hummm, I’ve got 25,000 followers on twitter. I’ll have to take a peak.
Sheesh. I must just be gettin old. Never thought I'd see the day that the US Government's most potent and relied upon weapon is "tweets on Twitter". Guess I'm just too "old school". The sooner we get on with it the better, far as I'm concerned. I'll go out just like I came in. d;^)
I am ashamed we have “president” that uses twitter.
Shows how far this country has fallen.
The President probably does not know how to turn his Blackberry on. The President employs people to tweet for him. Think about that.
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