pbs高端访谈:奥巴马再度使用竞选时收集的数字化信息

 　　JEFFREY BROWN:And, finally tonight, we continue our regular look at the intersection¹ of politics and social media.

　　Now, we're joined by two journalists from the website Daily Download. Lauren Ashburn is the site's editor in chief. Howard Kurtz is "Newsweek"'s Washington bureau chief and host of CNN's "Reliable Sources."

　　And welcome back.

　　HOWARD KURTZ,"Newsweek"/CNN: Thank you.

　　LAUREN ASHBURN,Daily-Download.com: Thank you.

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　　JEFFREY BROWN:Now, after the election, it's all fiscal² cliff, right? Talk a little—let's talk a little bit about how the White House is using social media and—and online efforts on that issue, Lauren.

　　LAUREN ASHBURN:It's as if this massive social media machine that propelled Barack Obama into office never stopped moving.

　　And you found that at the White House today, where he gave a speech talking about the fiscal cliff, introducing the hashtag, which is a way of grouping something, My2K, which is sort of a playoff of Y2K from the year 2000. And there are a lot of jokes going on about that. But it means...

　　JEFFREY BROWN:In this case...

　　LAUREN ASHBURN:Yes, right.

　　But in this case, it means that he's saying, if you don't do something, you are going to have to pay as middle-class taxpayers³ $2,000, allegedly.

　　HOWARD KURTZ:If Congress doesn't stop the automatic tax hikes.

　　JEFFREY BROWN:But this was in the context of a whole week where he's making his play, right? But he's doing it online.

　　HOWARD KURTZ:It's fascinating, Lauren.

　　Here, we have the president of the United States mounting a major push for his economic proposals, and he builds it around a Twitter campaign, what we have come to take for granted.

　　But here's the thing. I did a little search for this My2K on Twitter. Barack Obama comes up second. Call your members of Congress. Write them an e-mail. Tweet it using the hashtag.

　　You know what comes up first? The conservative Heritage Foundation, which bought a promoted tweet, which means theirs goes to the top of the list, and the Heritage tweet says four reasons why Warren Buffett, the zillionaire ally of the White House on this, is wrong on tax hikes.

　　LAUREN ASHBURN:But the interesting something is that now any time anyone types up on Twitter My2K, which was a White House-created hashtag, you get the Heritage Foundation.

　　HOWARD KURTZ:Among others.

　　JEFFREY BROWN:Among others.

　　LAUREN ASHBURN:You would think, though, that the Obama—at the top. You would think that the Obama administration would have bought their own tweet.

　　JEFFREY BROWN:Well, what are—Howie, what are—what is the administration asking its supporters to do through this hashtag? I mean, is it just to get the word out, or is there something more explicit⁴?

　　HOWARD KURTZ:Well, it's all about mobilizing public opinion, which is easier to do, Jeff, in a campaign when you have a clear choice, Barack Obama or Mitt⁵ Romney.

　　JEFFREY BROWN:Right.

　　HOWARD KURTZ:Obviously, with the Romney campaign now having evaporated, the Democrats⁶ have an advantage on this.

　　And so the—Obama for America, the digital group that was created to help get President Obama elected to a second term, has sent out an e-mail with graphics⁷ to its supporters on -- millions of people on e-mail lists, urging them to get involved on the president's proposals and to share some of this information with their friends.

　　JEFFREY BROWN:We're taking a look at that now.

　　So that's, Lauren, part of this. This is sort of what you were talking about, the permanent campaign.

　　LAUREN ASHBURN:It just never stops.

　　And what they're saying is, share this with your friends. Make a YouTube video. Post it on your Facebook and your e-mail. The question really comes down to, will this be as effective as these push letters were during the campaign? During the campaign, it's vote. Very simple, you have to go and vote.

　　Here, it's, OK, now you have to get involved in this really complicated issue called the fiscal cliff or the austerity movement.

　　JEFFREY BROWN:A little harder to explain than just vote yes or no.

　　HOWARD KURTZ:Harder to explain. And when you get into the back-and-forth of negotiating with Congress, and there are going to be different proposals, how many Americans would have their tax cuts extended, who's considered wealthy, $250,000 or above, it's a harder sell to make.

　　And, also, can you really maintain the passion that people have around the dramatic narrative⁸ of a presidential election vs. the inevitable⁹ slog of negotiating with members of Congress?

　　LAUREN ASHBURN:And everybody's really tired of it. As I was saying, even with the tweets, where we were talking about My2K tweets, somebody actually said, "Got to stock up on bottled water, flashlight batteries and ramen noodles."

　　People are just playing with Twitter, and they're tired of all of the substance.

　　JEFFREY BROWN:And I saw, I think it was just this week, Howie, the Obama campaign manager, of course former -- former now, right, Jim Messina.

　　But he was talking about this very issue, about keeping supporters, those millions that they got, engaged. But do they know how to do that? Or is this like everybody else sort of trying to figure out how to keep it going?

　　HOWARD KURTZ:This is the second opportunity, because after the election of 2008, when President Obama had built this digital machine, given the technology at the time, it kind of atrophied¹⁰. And they were not able to keep it up.

　　And I think, here, there's a real concerted effort. We have got the Obama for America. We used it in the campaign successfully.

　　Let's continue to recruit and activate¹¹ this volunteer army through digital means, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, as you were saying. But I don't know if they can maintain the level of enthusiasm once the election has passed.

　　JEFFREY BROWN:What about, Lauren, the other side, the Republicans? You mentioned the Heritage Foundation coming in on something like this. That's a think tank. But the Republican Party has a bigger problem right now, right?

　　LAUREN ASHBURN:It has a very big problem, and it's bigger than social media, frankly¹².

　　But you do have Speaker John Boehner, who is very active on Twitter. And he today was saying the House GOP voted to stop My2K tax rate hikes and defend small business jobs.

　　But that's one person, and you have lots of different people in the Congress sort of getting in on this bandwagon. But there isn't that overall effort, because the Romney campaign lost.

　　JEFFREY BROWN:Last word.

　　HOWARD KURTZ:But you do have Grover Norquist, the anti-tax activist¹³, who has been very active on Twitter, told me today that he considers it a great organizing tool.

　　He's been on about 50 television shows in the past week, but it's not the same as having a presidential candidate who has a big megaphone.

　　JEFFREY BROWN:All right, permanent social media campaign.

　　(LAUGHTER)

　　JEFFREY BROWN:Just what we need.

　　The Daily Download—Howard Kurtz, Lauren Ashburn, thanks so much.

　　HOWARD KURTZ:Thanks, Jeff.

1 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

2 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。

3 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

4 explicit   

adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的

参考例句：

• She was quite explicit about why she left.她对自己离去的原因直言不讳。
• He avoids the explicit answer to us.他避免给我们明确的回答。

5 mitt   

n.棒球手套，拳击手套，无指手套；vt.铐住，握手

参考例句：

• I gave him a baseball mitt for his birthday.为祝贺他的生日，我送给他一只棒球手套。
• Tom squeezed a mitt and a glove into the bag.汤姆把棒球手套和手套都塞进袋子里。

6 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 graphics   

n.制图法，制图学；图形显示

参考例句：

• You've leveraged your graphics experience into the video area.你们把图形设计业务的经验运用到录像业务中去。
• Improved graphics took computer games into a new era.经改进的制图技术将电脑游戏带进了一个新时代。

8 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

9 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

10 atrophied   

adj.萎缩的，衰退的v.（使）萎缩，（使）虚脱，（使）衰退( atrophy的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Patients exercised their atrophied limbs in the swimming pool. 病人们在泳池里锻炼萎缩的四肢。 来自辞典例句
• Method: Using microwave tissue thermocoaqulation to make chronic tonsillitis coagulated and atrophied. 方法：采用微波热凝方法使慢性扁桃体炎组织凝固、萎缩。 来自互联网

11 activate   

vt.使活动起来，使开始起作用

参考例句：

• We must activate the youth to study.我们要激励青年去学习。
• These push buttons can activate the elevator.这些按钮能启动电梯。

12 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

13 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。