The White House gets on Tumblr
People who write to President Obama could soon see their letters and e-mails go public on a new blog the White House launched Thursday, LettersToPresidentObama.tumblr.com.
The blog will share some of the thousands of letters that Mr. Obama receives from the public on a daily basis. Every night, he reads 10 letters selected by the White House.
"We've posted both letters the President has responded to personally in our 'Asked and Answered' series, and letters we've received from Americans that have helped us better understand the lives of folks across the country," a White House official said.
The first post is from Natoma Canfield, an Ohio woman who wrote to Mr. Obama in 2009 to share her struggles with health insurance after she beat cancer.
"My rates kept going up until I couldn't pay for my insurance any longer. I sure tried -- I cut back everything, but nothing made a difference. I had to cancel," she wrote in the post. "In a last-ditch effort, desperate to let someone know my plight, I wrote President Obama a letter straight from my heart. I shared my story with him and told him how much people like me needed his help. And he actually read it!"
A few months after she wrote to the president, she was diagnosed with a rare type of leukemia, she writes. Mr. Obama sent her several notes and called her on the phone. Her brother and sister later attended the signing of the Affordable Care Act.
The president carried the letter with him during the Congressional debate over the health care law, the White House said, and it now hangs in the hall between the Oval Office and the President's Private Office in the West Wing.
"I'm so grateful to have a President who truly cares about the people that he serves," Canfield wrote.
This isn't the administration's first foray into the world of Tumblr. In 2014, Mr. Obama held a Tumblr Q&A to talk about student loans. First lady Michelle Obama and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett have also answered questions on Tumblr.