The Treasury Department hosted a roundtable discussion earlier this month, inviting writers from the economic blogosphere to sit down with senior officials. The two-hour talk was held under condition that the eight bloggers who attended could not attribute quotes to specific officials, though Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner was notably present for the meeting.
The discussion, the first of its kind for bloggers at the Treasury, covered financial system reforms and disagreements the invitees had with those strategies.
From The New York Times:
Andrew Williams, a spokesman for the Treasury who assembled the event, said that Mr. Geithner had “long valued the blogosphere” and mentioned that during Mr. Geithner's tenure as the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, he had requested a daily compendium of relevant blog posts.
Interfluidity blogger Steve Randy Waldman said that while the invitation made him "more favorably disposed to policy makers,” he did not eat the cookies “on principle.”
No word yet from the Treasury on whether or not we'll see more of these roundtables in the future, though Economic professor and blogger Tyler Cowen noted the meeting “shows that the Obama administration is working very hard on outreach to a lot of different media sources.” So... did it work?