On Sunday, March 12, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began a series of public radio broadcasts that came to be known as “fireside chats.”
Over the next eleven years, President Roosevelt would make at total of thirty speeches, averaging one speech every couple of months.
The fireside chats were a way for President Roosevelt to connect with the American people, keep them informed on current events, and encourage them during the Great Depression.
And now, nearly 65 years after President Roosevelt’s last fireside chat on Monday, June 12, 1944, another president is addressing the nation.
According to the White House website, President Barak H. Obama plans to give weekly addresses to the nation. We’ve come a long way from President Roosevelt’s days of radio. Back then, if you missed the broadcast, you could only read about it later in the newspapers.
But today, you can watch President Obama’s weekly address online through the offical White House website, or watch it on YouTube (here), or you can listen to the audio-only version on iTunes by downloading the free podcast.
So the American public is still tuning in to what the President has to say, but we’re listening on our terms, when we want to.
It’s a little different from the sense of community, urgency (it was, after all, the Great Depression), and passion that probably surrounded Roosevelt’s chats.
But hey, at least we’re still listening to the President, whatever the format or time.
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