President-elect Barack Obama is taping Saturday's weekly Democratic address not just for listeners, but for YouTube viewers. And he plans to keep videotaping the radio addresses after taking the oath of office on Jan. 20. The broadcasts owe a debt to President Franklin Roosevelt, who seized on the new technology that was all the rage in the 1930s for his "fireside chats," famously reassuring through times of Depression and war. The modern era's Saturday radio addresses were initiated by President Ronald Reagan and have evolved into a weekly fixture of the presidency, accompanied by a response from the party out of power. President Obama is turning the radio address into a "multimedia opportunity" to communicate directly with the American people.
