Donald Trump has tweeted, "THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA 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 has believed that his or her journalistic rigor protects the country from danger. Washington was the first president to grouse about his treatment in the newspapers, though he kept his complaints private. Subsequent chiefs like John Adams, Lincoln, Wilson and 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 reporters who followed him, doling out information and squashing stories that interfered with his agenda. That lesson was lost on Wilson, who never accepted reporters into his inner circle. Franklin Roosevelt transformed media relations forever, holding more than a thousand press conferences and harnessing the new power of radio. Kennedy excelled on television and charmed reporters to hide his personal life, while 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 intentionally 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.
1. Introduction & Chapter 1, George Washington
2. Chapters 2 & 3, John Adams & Thomas Jefferson
3. Chapters 4 & 5, Andrew Jackson & Abraham Lincoln
4. Chapters 6 & 7, Theodor Roosevelt & Woodrow Wilson
5. Chapters 8 & 9, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Parts I & II
6. Chapters 10 & 11, John F. Kennedy & Lyndon B. Johnson
7. Chapters 12 & 13, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford & Jimmy Carter
8. Chapters 14 & 15, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush & Bill Clinton
9. Chapters 16 & 17, George W. Bush & Barack Obama
10. Chapter 18, Donald Trump & Wrap-up