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.
