Obama to Field Questions Posted by YouTube Users

On Monday, President Obama is scheduled to sit down in the library of the White House residence for his first interview since his State of the Union address. The interviewer? The United States of YouTube.

In a first-of-its-kind group interview, President Obama will read and watch questions submitted by YouTube users and answer them in a live Webcast. "It's a way to give people access to the president that feels more participatory," said Macon Phillips, the Obama administration's director of new media. YouTube, which is owned by Google, will allow people both to submit questions and to vote for their favorite ones, "so we get a stronger signal about what the crowd is interested in," said Steve Grove, the head of news and politics at YouTube and a former reporter for The Boston Globe.