Presidents And The Media

Is Donald Trump’s "War on the Media" new news, fake news, or business as usual? Presidents have always "used" the media and felt abused by it. Tried and true vehicles such as press conferences, routine speeches and the State of the Union address have served presidents’ interests and received significant coverage by the print media. As new technologies have entered the media spectrum, the speed and pervasiveness of these interactions have changed dramatically. President Obama ushered in the social media presidency, while President Trump has become the tweeter-in-chief. This book shows how each of these developments affects what is communicated and how it is received by the public.

The proliferation of social media has altered the way that people interact with each other - leveling the channels of communication to allow an individual to be "friends" with a sitting president. In a world where a citizen can message Barack Obama directly, this book addresses the new channels of communication in politics, and what they offer.

An award-winning presidential historian offers an authoritative account of American presidents' attacks on our freedom of the press—including a new foreword chronicling the end of the Trump presidency. “The FAKE NEWS media,” Donald Trump has tweeted, “is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” Has our free press ever faced as great a threat? Perhaps not—but the tension between presidents and journalists is as old as the republic itself. Every president has been convinced of his own honesty and transparency; every reporter who has covered the White House beat has believed with equal fervency that his or her journalistic rigor protects the country from danger. Our first president, George Washington, was also the first to grouse about his treatment in the newspapers, although he kept his complaints private. Subsequent chiefs like John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Barack Obama were not so reticent, going so far as to wield executive power to overturn press freedoms, and even to prosecute journalists. Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to actively manage the stable of reporters who followed him, doling out information, steering coverage, and squashing stories that interfered with his agenda. It was a strategy that galvanized TR’s public support, but the lesson was lost on Woodrow Wilson, who never accepted reporters into his inner circle. Franklin Roosevelt transformed media relations forever, holding more than a thousand presidential press conferences and harnessing the new power of radio, at times bypassing the press altogether. John F. Kennedy excelled on television and charmed reporters to hide his personal life, while Richard Nixon was the first to cast the press as a public enemy. From the days of newsprint and pamphlets to the rise of Facebook and Twitter, each president has harnessed the media, whether intentional or not, to imprint his own character on the office. In this remarkable new history, acclaimed scholar Harold Holzer examines the dual rise of the American presidency and the media that shaped it. From Washington to Trump, he chronicles the disputes and distrust between these core institutions that define the United States of America, revealing that the essence of their confrontation is built into the fabric of the nation.

Certainly all presidents and prime ministers have engaged in spin to a certain extent, but in the past the media - and the public - checked the extent to which our leaders were able to fudge the truth. However, President Bush has repeatedly used deception, told outright lies, and rewritten history to sell his policy agenda. And thanks to one of the most aggressive public relations teams ever assembled, he has been able to get away with it since he began his campaign. In the wake of September 11, the administration has taken its questionable conduct to a new level by attempting to intimidate critics and has tried to connect virtually every policy initiative to the war on terrorism. Bush has used the same tactics to mislead the public on a wide range of other major policy initiatives, from the environment to homeland security to Social Security - all with little scepticism from the media.

An award-winning presidential historian offers an authoritative account of American presidents' attacks on our freedom of the press. “The FAKE NEWS media,” Donald Trump has tweeted, “is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” Has our free press ever faced as great a threat? Perhaps not—but the tension between presidents and journalists is as old as the republic itself. Every president has been convinced of his own honesty and transparency; every reporter who has covered the White House beat has believed with equal fervency that his or her journalistic rigor protects the country from danger. Our first president, George Washington, was also the first to grouse about his treatment in the newspapers, although he kept his complaints private. Subsequent chiefs like John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Barack Obama were not so reticent, going so far as to wield executive power to overturn press freedoms, and even to prosecute journalists. Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to actively manage the stable of reporters who followed him, doling out information, steering coverage, and squashing stories that interfered with his agenda. It was a strategy that galvanized TR’s public support, but the lesson was lost on Woodrow Wilson, who never accepted reporters into his inner circle. Franklin Roosevelt transformed media relations forever, holding more than a thousand presidential press conferences and harnessing the new power of radio, at times bypassing the press altogether. John F. Kennedy excelled on television and charmed reporters to hide his personal life, while Richard Nixon was the first to cast the press as a public enemy. From the days of newsprint and pamphlets to the rise of Facebook and Twitter, each president has harnessed the media, whether intentional or not, to imprint his own character on the office. In this remarkable new history, acclaimed scholar Harold Holzer examines the dual rise of the American presidency and the media that shaped it. From Washington to Trump, he chronicles the disputes and distrust between these core institutions that define the United States of America, revealing that the essence of their confrontation is built into the fabric of the nation.

This work re-examines the emergence of the 20th-century media President, whose authority to govern depends largely on his ability to generate public support by appealing to the citizenry through the news media. From 1897 to 1933, White House successes and failures with the press established a foundation for modern executive leadership and helped to shape patterns of media practices and technologies through which Americans have viewed the presidency during most of the 20th century.

Do presidents inevitably lose support the longer they are in office? Does the public invariably rally behind presidents during international crises? What are the criteria by which the public forms its judgment about whether or not the president is doing a good job? And what is the role of daily news reporting and elite opinion in shaping the public's perception of the president's performance? This book addresses these questions and many others surrounding the dynamics of fluctuating public support for the president of the United States. Drawing its case material from the modern presidency from Kennedy through Reagan, with looks backward as far as Truman, this innovative work shows how the standing of the president with the American people has come to have a political life of its own. The author first examines two seemingly distinctive periods of opinion formation: the 'honeymoon' at the beginning of a presidential term and the 'rally' of presidential support that accompanies international crises. He then analyzes two previous explanations of public support - length of term in office and the state of the economy - and concludes that these explanations are, respectively, incorrect and incomplete. The author presents a model of information processing that ties public support to indications of policy success or failure brought to the attention of the public through daily news reporting by the media. The model is tested initially for the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford; it is then refined and tested further for the Carter and Reagan presidencies.

Managing the Press re-examines the emergence of the twentieth century media President, whose authority to govern depends largely on his ability to generate public support by appealing to the citizenry through the news media. From 1897 to 1933, White House successes and failures with the press established a foundation for modern executive leadership and helped to shape patterns of media practices and technologies through which Americans have viewed the presidency during most of the twentieth century. Author Stephen Ponder shows how these findings suggest a new context for contemporary questions about mediated public opinion and the foundations of presidential power, the challenge to the presidency by an increasingly adversarial press, the emergence of 'new media' formats and technologies, and the shaping of presidential leadership for the twenty-first century. Managing the Press explores the rise of the media presidency through the lens of the late-twentieth century, when the relationship between the President and the press is relevant to more important issues than ever before in the context of American politics.