Obama on The Tonight Show

A couple of days ago Barrack Obama appeared as a guest at The Tonight Showwith Jay Leno. Obama is the first sitting President to appear on a late night TV talk show. Obama’s appearance on The Tonight Show has led to a heated debate in the US if it is right of Obama to visit Jay Leno instead of staying in Washington, and try to fix the economy. So there are both advantages and downsides for Obama by being a guest on The Tonight Show.

Obama’s use of the media was one of reasons he won the election. His use of media forms such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube helped his campaign to engage young people. This is a group that usally has a low voter turnout, but this was not the case for the last election. By using new forms of media Obama managed to get more people interested in politics (especially the youth) and therefore generating more votes for himself. It can be discussed if a night TV talk show is a new form of media, but at least it is something. What we must not forget is that Obama is now the President. He is now representing the people not only young people, but the people as whole. That makes it important to use a more traditional media channel such as TV; he can't only rely on the internet anymore since many Americans don't use the internet much or know how to use it. So by appearing on the tonight show Obama went out to the people, instead of waiting for the people to come to him. Another important factor in this time of crisis is information. For many people it is a lot easier to understand what is being said on a night TV talk show than reading a political magazine. Obama is getting down to their level by appearing The Tonight Show.

However there are a few downsides as well. Critics are saying that Obama appears as a President that is more interested in media attention than fixing the economy. They are saying that he should have stayed back in Washington to work as much possible. During the interview with Jay Leno Obama also made a joke that did not turn out that good. He compared his bowling skills with the skills of an athlete in the Special Olympics. In today’s society where everything have to be political correct this was a huge mistake by Obama. Other than that he did not make any remarkable mistakes while he was on the show. So overall I would conclude with that Obama probably gained more than he lost by appearing on The Tonight Show.