State Department signs up 20k people who wanted text messages about Obama’s Cairo speech
By APSaturday, June 6, 2009
20K people outside US got Obama speech texts
WASHINGTON — More than 20,000 people outside the U.S. received free text messages about President Barack Obama’s speech to Muslims in Cairo, Egypt.
The White House deputy national security adviser, Denis McDonough, said Saturday that the State Department’s free message program helped spread Obama’s words of engagement to countries with predominantly Muslim populations. The messages were available in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and English.
The text-messaging service was not available in the United States. Law forbids taxpayer dollars to be used domestically for propaganda.
The tech-savvy White House sought to reinforce Obama’s message in every way possible, including distributing a transcript in 13 other languages. Aides also worked on Twitter and Facebook to reinforce the message.
