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Clinton Takes Diplomacy Digital

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The Associated Press

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 30, 2009

WASHINGTON - In less than three months, Hillary Rodham Clinton's State Department has embarked on a digital diplomacy drive aimed at spreading the word about American foreign policy and restoring Washington's image. Part of a broader Internet outreach by President Barack Obama's administration, Clinton's Web efforts already have outpaced those of her predecessors.

Some highlights:

•A revamped department Web site ( www.state.gov) and the Dipnote blog, which can be found both at the Web site and on Twitter, with a fresh array of features, graphics and colorful posts.

•An interactive map to track Clinton's foreign travel.

•Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube presences.

•An "ask-the-secretary" column on the department's Web site was recently revised to "text the secretary."

On her first two foreign trips, to Asia and then the Middle East and Europe, local bloggers were "embedded" with the traveling press corps, broadening the audience for Clinton's official meetings and public appearances, which often produce more personal than policy questions.

By the end of Clinton's trip to the Mideast, her "text the secretary" feature had received nearly 2,000 text messages. On both trips, Clinton also participated in Webcasts. One in Beijing on climate change generated more than 10.2 million page views, more than 50,000 comments and 7,000 questions, according to the statistics.

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