Obama expands media strategy to long-form conversations
January 6, 2016
The novelist tossed out phrases such as “religious humanism” and “the sinister other.” The interviewer asked her about her upbringing and writing process. At an hour and 7,000 thoughtful words, the discussion sounded like a college seminar or an independent bookstore reading. But this was part of the White House’s new media strategy. Even for a president well-practiced in using nontraditional media, the conversation in September between Barack Obama and writer Marilynne Robinson — and a few other conversations like it conducted in recent months — charted new territory in presidential communications. Slow-paced, personal, nearly divorced from the news of