Reading the White House Flickr feed
What does the White House Flickr feed say about who has influence in the Obama administration?
The White House Flickr feed gives a sense of the Obama administration pecking order, according to Tech President.
Who shows up most in photos with the president?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the high-profile Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Advisor David Axelrod appear in the most photos.
But the feed is an unscientific way of measuring influence in the White House. For example, CIA Director Leon Panetta appears in only three photos, and there are none of David Plouffe, former campaign manager for the president, according to The New York Times.
It’s important to remember, too, that the Flickr feed is a “message vehicle, not a reporting one,” writes Politico‘s Ben Smith.
“The high numbers for the national security team are the product of months of publishing photos of national security meetings to make the point that Obama was intensely focused on the Afghan war. They tell you how the White House wants to seem, not how it is.”
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