To mostly positive media reviews, President Obama yesterday addressed executives in what has been billed by the White House as major outreach from Washington to business. His speech received widespread coverage in most major media outlets, some of which also reported on the reaction by business.
ABC World News (2/7, lead story, 2:50, Sawyer) reported that the President “delivered an urgent message to the companies to get in the game, start spending money and hiring workers — throwing down a gauntlet but also trying to build a bridge.” ABC (Tapper) added that “Obama is desperate to get the economy going,” and showed him saying, “So if I’ve got one message, my message is now is the time to invest in America. Now is the time to invest in America. And if there is a reason that you don’t share my confidence, if there is a reason that you don’t believe that this is the time to get off the sidelines, to hire and to invest, I want to know about it. I want to fix it.”
The CBS Evening News (12/7, story 3, 2:25, Couric) said “Obama continued his campaign to improve relations with business,” urging “corporate America to invest the nearly $2 trillion it has saved up and start hiring again. For his part, he President promised to address their complaints about the corporate tax code and burdensome government regulations.”
Bloomberg News (2/8, Brower, Dorning) reports that in his remarks, “Obama said he is doing his part to improve the business climate after a free- trade agreement with South Korea, a deal to extend Bush-era tax cuts, and a State of the Union address that proposed more government support for infrastructure and ‘innovation.'” The President “touched on some of the same themes he struck in his State of the Union address: the need to rebuild and modernize the nation’s transportation and telecommunications systems and take steps that will promote research and innovation in areas such as biotechnology, information technology and clean energy.”
Politico (2/8, Cummings),The Wall Street Journal (2/8, Williamson; subscription required), Financial Times (2/8, Braithwaite; subscription required) and Christian Science Monitor (2/8, Feldmann), among other news outlets, also report on Obama’s speech.
SME Daily Executive Briefing
2/8/2011