Foreign policy analyst and author brandon weikert talks about his latest book on the importance of american dominance in space. Zer,n historian harold hol we were talking that this was book number 54 few, president s versus the press. Explore thented to relationship between chief executives and the journalists who have covered them, praise them, cap their secrets, and generally antagonized them. I wanted to trace the origins of on ourationships we see Television Screens almost every day. It as aso wanted to do followup to a book i put out five years ago about lincoln and the press, and see how it all fit in as a possible continuum of difficult relations, strained relations between the president and the press from the beginning. Susan how did you select which president s were included . Harold i dreamed of doing everybody but i realized it was impractical and might be tedious. Dying to know about james polk and the press or benjamin harrison, but i decided to cover the founding era, with washington, adams and jefferson, skip to andrew jackson, who really was a major precedent setter on relationships with press, take a deep dive into lincoln, and then go to the 20th century president s and a course into the 21st. Harding,t coolidge, hoover. And after kennedy, he was everybody. ,t was really a personal choice the president s that interested me. I thought readers would certainly want to know about everyone whom they might remember from their own lived experience, and thats why i included president s who served only briefly like jerry ford. Susan did you have the opportunity to talk to any president s in your research . Two. D well, i only asked i guess this is a back story. I asked george w. Bush and bill clinton. I did not want to overload it with the spin that residents might give on their experience with the press and i also wanted to stay away from living press secretaries, there are an abundance of them. I just wanted to dwell on the records of briefings, press conferences and immediately published memoirs. But president clinton was generous enough and thoughtful enough to provide answers to some of the questions i wanted to raise with him. These may be the first comments he has made about one of those years. Eight susan i feel the obligation to tell people that we have known each other a long time. We will spend two hours together on this subject matter. Since 1994, when cspan did its first lincoln project, the lincolndouglas debate, and we have worked on many things sense. Since. It is delightful to have you in this context. I wanted to jump to the punchline. Im guessing you were inspired to the subject matter by the current president , incumbent president , and all of the sparring he has been doing and the big criticism he has for the fake news media. What is the punchline . Is Donald Trumps relationship with the press the worst ever . Harold no. As much as i thought i would confirm my own suspicions as a citizen watching all of the chaotic briefings and press conferences and tweets that it disputations, that i think its a long tradition starting with adams and jefferson, until lincoln. Certainly a complicated relationship with fdr. And nixon certainly had a worse relationship with the press, he just did not harp on a daily and did not have the technological means to harp on it without going out and confronting the press. This is president ial tradition. Several president s emerged from my research saying almost identical things fake news or false news. That is not a new construct. Also reminding their own staff periodically that the press are not your friend. We are at odds. That is the classic relationship. Dont get too chummy with journalists. The president s have to be told that, but clever president s told staff that. Access to theore complaints than we have ever had, and that is because of technological innovation. Susan is the relationship between the president and the press in this country different because of the First Amendment . 1 oh yes. Harold oh yes. We are freer here than in any country that has democratic rule or unelectedip president s. The reason, as you mentioned, is the First Amendment, and the great fighters for the First Amendment, one of whom, floyd abrams, figures in the book, an interview and i used some of his published writings. He has pushed back against quite a few president s who have pushed against the edge of the First Amendment. That is not to say that president s have always respected the constitutional provision that Congress Shall not interfere with freedom of the press. They have gone around it in several different ways. They have passed and signed legislation, they have simply said the are in a war so we can Pay Attention to it. Will employ secrecy to eavesdrop and later to punish. Thererst amendment is out as an ideal, but more than one president has done his best to push back and push the limits. Susan your book was originally scheduled to come out in the springtime, delayed by the pandemic. What has it been like publishing this year . Harold it is frightening. And i dont know whether there will be an audience for this book or really any book in this period. I am heartened by the fact that it is appearing between convention time. Than well more tuned were several weeks ago to the countdown to election day, and to president ss relationships to duringists and the media their campaign and white house occupancy. The thing that makes me saddest i missing all of the events am used to having when a new book comes out. Live, life talks and talks and book signings. I think i will miss book signings very much because you get to talk to readers and chat about their interests. Friendly, you never know who you will meet on a line. I have met descendents of people i wrote about, longlost relatives. I have met people who have an idea i have not thought of that i like to pocket and use the next time i write. So that will be tough. But again, we are all here and doing well and thats about the most we can ask for. Susan i think all readers look canard to the day they again stand and book lines for sure. Im going to start our survey conversation with john adams because it is an interesting history. Is there anything people should know about George Washington setting precedents in relationship with the press . Harold i think so. Washington i have two beginnings in my book, the introduction and chapter one, and he is the first president. , i haverprised to learn ,one the research, washington the universally revered figure, became less so in the final year of his first term, and all through his second term was subject to the First Episodes of deeply partisan journalism. Horrified, was annoyed, hurt, angry. I found several episodes where threw newspapers to the ground, jumped up and down on the newspapers, ripping them up with his boots, yelling about getting subscriptions he did not want. Meanwhile, the antifederalist press which, by the way we, was imported into the capital of philadelphia by washingtons own secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, who not only created the opposition newspaper but funded the editor, give him a job in the state department so he could afford to be the newspaper editor of a lushly enterprise. Of a fledgling enterprise. Washington found himself accused of stealing money from the treasury, indiscretions during the french and indian war, a lack of patriotism. Charges that were unimaginable against the early washington. His farewell address, he drafted a paragraph, later cut by his editor, alexander hamilton, that made it clear that one of the reasons he was not standing for a third term is he could not take the implications, as he put it, of newspapers any longer. He thought they were displaying to the world that our union was fragile, and he had enough. Susan john adams is described in your book as cranky, never got over hurt and resentment, and lacked charm. How did this impact his relationship with the press . Harold as you can imagine, he did not charm reporters or editors. At the beginning, he had the first, if you dont count washingtons adoration at the beginning, he had the first press honeymoon, a phrase that came into the vernacular much later. Hisas shocked after making inaugural address in 1797 that republican newspapers, that is the antifederalist newspapers, applauded him. The federalist newspapers from his own party were not as excited. The reason is they wanted to to bedams a chance perceived better than washington, who was perceived to be probritish. By theas not deceived early flattery and quickly became partisan. The Republican Press went after pressand the federalist was tepid about him and that doomed his reelection in the famous race against jefferson. Susan you write that the prescription for his frustration with the press was always regulation. What did he do . Harold he signed one of the most illadvised, antidemocratic, unconstitutional measures in American History. The sedition act, part of a package of suppressive bills to limit immigration and crackdown on journalistic criticism. It actually made it a federal offense for a newspaper to hope to ridicule the president of the united states. ,here were large monetary fines there were prison terms threatened, and it was not just a tubeless warning. The adams a ministration went after republican journalists, fined them, imprisoned them. A projefferson editor was imprisoned in the richmond jail for five or six months and find about 500 for criticizing john adams. This was a horrific time in American History, at least American Press history. Of worst abuse constitutional guarantees. Susan what was the rationale for signing the law legally . Harold i dont know if he had a legal rationale, he had a political rationale. The political rationale was that criticism that was libelous did not fall under First Amendment protection. He found a stark opposition from the other party. Thomas jefferson denounced the sedition act and frankly one of the reasons he prevailed in the next election was the bitter taste left by the sedition act. Jefferson did oppose the sedition act because he did not believe the federal government could overreach on anything legislatively. When he became president , libel actions continued, they were just bumped to the state level. Adams you write that john conducted 17 show trials during the election year, 12 against publishers and printers. Why were they show trials . Harold i think that he was i think the purpose of the trial was not simply to silence the accused, but to silence the Broader Group of antifederalist newspaper editors who he hoped be chilled from further criticism that he deemed to be personal, by these trials. Keep in mind, one of the big jeffersonian objections to the sedition act, beside that he felt it was federal overreach, the fact that all of the judges that were in place were federalist. All of them had been appointed by George Washington in john adams. Thats the Appeals Court and supreme court. Thinkicans argued, and i with strength on their side, that the courts were stacked against them. But adams definitely wanted the show trial to demonstrate the government was indeed going to crackdown mercilessly. They were sending a message. Susan how did it work out for them . Harold well, he goes down in history as perhaps the most antipress freedom president we will beugh surprised as we go on chronologically to find out who joins him in that category. He also called for he was the first call for a state run news agency, which has an autocratic air to it. He was not the last. I guess adams left with a repressing,f being thinskinned because again, this was all about criticism and how he reacted to it. Somesedition act said when jefferson became would never again rekindle. But the measures it legislated were later revised by lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and others. Susan Abigail Adams was one of the first outspoken first ladies. Did she support john adams in this effort . Harold absolutely. She was 100 his advocate and writingned with him in really angry letters about press critics. Can i go ahead to jefferson to give an example . Susan sure. srold one of adams chief critics was james calendar , who later turned against jefferson after criticizing adams and going to prison, turned against jefferson. Abigail had a wonderful series of letters with jefferson in which she basically said i told you soap youd he was no good i told you so. He was no good. You paid the penalty. Sowed the world wind whirlwind. Susan under the system jefferson helped create, newspapers became participants and, not just observers of government. What did you mean by that . Harold the First Episode goes back to the washington era, he was funded a fellow french, James Madisons roommate in college. To move to philadelphia, start a newspaper, to oppose the federalist newspaper pretty much praising everything washington did. He encouraged him. To operate. Anlater encouraged , theesting newspaperman grandson of benjamin franklin, who started his own newspaper in philadelphia and quickly turned against George Washington viciously. Calendar for aes while. Ascends to the presidency, he decides since he is now in washington, d. C. Emme he leaves the infrastructure in washington, d. C. , he leaves the newspaper infrastructure in philadelphia as it is. He creates a new jeffersonian newspaper in washington. It is pledged to support jeffersons policies, and in return they get access to news, they get to be the first news acrossdistributing news the country, which grew jeffersonsy in administration, and was rewarded financially. Had begun a policy where newspapers will be given government contracts for printing handbills and circulars, government advertisements, and the newspapers would also be hired to record the proceedings of congress. There was no congressional record until the lincoln e ra. So newspapers lined up for the rewards of printing the proceedings of the house and senate. They made a lot of money and theres nothing like money to see a loyalty seal loyalty. Susan what was the readership like during this time . Did people only read the press that aligned with their thinking and where they only reading regionally . Harold readership is one of the rate mysteries of the time. Newspapers were not daily additions, they were weekly and moved to twice daily. They moved to daily when print presses became more mechanical. Newspapers expanded into more territory but readership was small. In the thousands at the beginning. There is no way to determine with any accuracy the reader was. Readership. Iteracy was not high truncated. E was the largest ever population was under 18 in the new country and we dont know if they read. Newspaperon of a might be shared by his many as 25 or 30 people in a nuclear family. It is hard to determine readership. To your other question, my own instincts are and visitors from other countries make note of this through the 1840s and 1850s when they visited the united states, and that is that people were given totally different reports about individual news events according to the Political Party affiliated with the paper they read. European visitors often could not recognize the event they themselves had witnessed when they read about in the Different Party papers the next morning. Read the party paper for which they were affiliated and nothing else. I think it is comparable to the viewers whohave on are glued often to msnbc or fox but dont flip the dial between to get different perspectives. Was reallypress about a trajectory of partisan and moving into coverage that was supposed to be fair to whomever was in office, and now we are again in an age where at least on television, people are moving to partisan outlets. Harold absolutely. I wouldnt even say are moving. Susan have moved. Harold they have unloaded the moving van and are in the house. Susan getting back to Thomas Jefferson, you referenced thomas calendar, his greatest enemy. To jeffersonse reputation. What do we know about calendar . Harold he was a jefferson ally, he had been writing for a paper in philadelphia and really destroyed washington, practically criminalizing him, haunting him all the way back to mount vernon. Then he established a newspaper and richmond aligned with Thomas Jefferson and he went to jefferson or communicated with jefferson and asked if he could become the poster monster postmaster of richmond. It was not an outrageous request, editors were given federal jobs all the time and they were rewarded. Jefferson did not like the insistence with which calendar asked him for this reward and he said no. That was not a smart move by jefferson. Jefferson would always write beautifully about freedom but did not always practice what he preached, as we know about slavery and freedom of the press. Calendar immediately switched to a federalist newspaper, and this is after he had done prison time for criticizing the federalists. He jumped to a federalist newspaper and he writes a pamphlet in which he says thomas , orerson is living in sin whatever the right word is, with an enslaved woman who he owns and is the halfsister of his late wife. This, of course, is the celli hemmings story that has now been hemmings story that has now been proven through dna. This story was put in circulation by calendar and deeply disruptive of jeffersons reputation at the time. One might argue deservedly so. That was calendars revenge. If there was a lesson to be learned, it was to hold your press allies close to you, especially the ones who are a little bit unstable. Calendar later dragged himself drank himself into a stupor and jumped into or fell into a river and died. By which time jefferson had paid some of his fine for the sedition act, and then broken with him and suffered reputational consequences. Susan you write about jefferson that despite his activity toward the press, he came to revile the opposition press, that he never abandon the core belief that under no circumstances could the federal government prevent newspapers from printing opinions. Harold exactly. But he did encourage the prosecution of newspapers understate libel laws. There was a famous case that was adjudicated in albany, new york himselfander hamilton was brought into be the appeals lawyer and was so persuasive in getting the charges dismissed that new york refined its libel laws to allow for more criticism. Jefferson, again, he is a difficult subject to write about almost anything because his actions sometimes speak louder than his words. Capable of was writing all men are created equal and then enslaving people was also the person who wrote if i had to choose between a free press and a government, i would choose a free press. Persuasive about the benefits of a free press. And when he was retired, he said i never read the newspapers because except for the advertisements, because that is the only truth confined in a newspaper. He wrote a mocking statement once about how to sell a successful newspaper. Dont tell the truth, you will never be successful. Yet he saved so many newspapers assistantse and his and those who work on his estate donated his library to the library of congress, as we know it was the core of the library of congress. We hear about the books he donated but he also donated thousands of newspapers. He was, as in many aspects of his life, a very perplexing jekyll and hyde. Susan were going to jump to Abraham Lincoln. I have to read this because ive read it several times to prepare for this interview and it is so strong. He had become by 1864 the harshest and indeed the most repressive president ial sensor yet. Even the sedition act could not match the ferocity and scope, the undeclared and largely unchallenged war the Lincoln Administration begin warring against hostile newspapers within months of his inauguration. Harold i was tough. Susan you were tough. Harold well, we can argue about the legality, the rationale, the tensions and anxieties that existed when the Southern States seceded and started a rebellion. That was lincolns argument, that in the case of rebellion, all bets are off. He felt he was not obligated to protect individual constitutional guarantees if that meant the entire constitution would go down the drain with the union. So that was his rationale. But the record is undeniable. Adams may have conducted what i call show trials to enforce the sedition act, that at least but at least there were trials, a semblance of civil procedure. Lincoln suspended civil procedure, he suspended the writ of habeas corpus early in the war and enforced a crackdown on the press through the military. The army close down newspapers. The army and the state department threw newspapers out of the post office in new york so they could not be mailed in 1861 to other constituents, threw them off change trains. There was an indictment against newspapers, a federal force that roused a newspaperman from his bed and hauled him as a facener to washington to nila terry inquiry. Military inquiry. Overln authorized taking of the telegraph wires by the military. U saw in the movie lincoln a kind of benign president who liked to chat with the telegraph operators, but that was also a place where newspaper men had to go for final stories and it was inhibiting i would say to go to a room right outside of the ferocious secretary of wars office where the commanderinchief used to hang out. Not a good way to file stories. They were examples of editors whose stories were censored. They were tarred and feathered, not lincolns fault, but the atmosphere. Of 300 newspapers were temporarily shut down, editors arrested, and who were often imprisoned without the kind of trials the Adams Justice department provided. Susan you mentioned the telegraph. Photography were becoming technology is widely used in society. What impact they have on the coverage of the Lincoln Administration . Harold im glad you asked because one of the themes of my book is how president s have used technology to their advantage, the governmentce got control of the telegraph, immediately sensed its utility. He would write letters to werecs and make sure they published in newspapers and distributed by telegraph to the west, meaning illinois in those days. Later in the war when he spent much of the last three weeks of his life at the front during grants last l push againstee and virginia push against lee in virginia, he sent dispatches that wasg the siege then printed on front pages of newspapers as if he had become not only the commanderinchief correspondent in chief. Did makef course it brilliant use of the telegraph for rapidfire communication of his opinions and reports from the front. Photography was coming into its own. I did not make much of it in the book at the time, not until much later in the book, because while photography was growing in popularity and ubiquity, photographs were still not printed in the newspaper. Odey were adapted with wo engravings in the weeklies. Often they settled for battle maps, seldom for portraits. But lincoln provided the model through which he became the great star and most familiar face in america, through the picture weeklies. Susan what is the corning letter and why is it significant . Harold corning, the same family that later dominated the glass york, a in upstate new democratic politician in upstate new york called a convention of democrats to push back against lincolns abdication of civil liberties. The administration had just cracked down on a former democratic congressman in ohio who was advised who had advised young to not enlist and resist the draft. Then the chicago times, a longtime critic of lincoln, a democratic newspaper, endorsed the congressmans recommendation. The congressman was arrested, tried, convicted and expelled from ohio. The chicago times was closed, its editor was arrested, and although lincoln later approved resending the measure, re corning the letter, called him a dictator. So lincoln wrote a letter defending that he was violating the constitution. And it is a brilliant letter and he makes a convincing argument that he has to prosecute these cases or the union itself will be destroyed. So what is the point of protecting press liberties and the right to speak in public against the government if it causes the fall of the government itself . Was he justified . It is still debated in law lincoln forums, but he said it must i shoot a singleminded soldier boy and ly agitator who encourages him to desert . He believed that recommending soldiers not enlist, that they desert, that they resist the draft, was treason, and he treated it as such. , you this caught my eye say unnoticed by other historians, his continued crackdown on the press went on even when wins seemed inevitable. Harold i was surprised to find episodes late in his presidency. Fter he won reelection it was consistent, the policy was consistent. And really up to the time of his death an editor had been exiled i think to canada who is railing against his assault on press freedom. Think, i should add there is a case to be made that lincoln acted in the best albeitt of the country, violating the First Amendment, when he believes a constitution was under threat. But i find it remarkable that during political campaigns, he did not crackdown on criticism. In fact, he just rolled with it. He encouraged his own supporters to attack back. He wrote letters to the editor objecting to criticism or slander, although he never sent the most famous objection of those. He believed that election campaigns where the holy grail of the american citizen. , you did not do anything violent during this sacred period. During the 1862 off year election when he had to defend the emancipation proclamation, the Republican Party took a beating and lincoln did not object to criticism, really vile criticism of his inciting socalled war, as some of the press put it. During his own campaign for reelection, he was treated rudely brutally by the democratic press, including suffering the most racist attacks in the history of american politics, i think. Would fomenthe intermarriage and that was the basis of his reelection campaign, which was a little out of his camp at this point. He treated campaigns as open season and i think that is to his credit. Susan the next president i want to jump to is theodore roosevelt. You called him the master press agent of all time. Why does he earn that in your estimation . Harold i should say that was a quote by one of the journalists who felt outdone by teddy. Up until Teddy Roosevelt, editors were the beall and endall. They controlled policy, the tenor of reports from washington. They were the ones that president s be funded befriended, gave jobs and contracts two. The roosevelt era change that. Washington correspondence were more important. Teddy roosevelt realized immediately he could leave the editors alone of the daily press in fact, they did not like him much. Certainly hearst didnt and pull asserted and spewed and izter didnt. He concerned himself with the correspondents. He called them the sagamore hill club. Loyalty werelated someone alub, purgatory for journalists. What he also did was welcome journalists to talk to him. Even lincoln had not done that. Interviews may be in his entire career as president. One of them was Nathaniel Hawthorne, and how could you say no to Nathaniel Hawthorne running for the Atlantic Monthly . Teddy no press conferences yet, that would be his successor but around 1 00, his barber would come in the little hallway between the outer office in the oval office and give him a shave. While he was covered in lather with an apron over his clothes, he would invite the Washington Press corps to ask him questions. There are great reminiscences. Reporters would try to get him upset because he would leap out of the chair and the barber would be holding a straight edge razor over his cheeks or throat and it was a game to see which one of them would subject themselves to a laceration. But teddy did more than that, he endeared himself to longform writerssts, magazine for hiside the ballast progressive reform by writing about standard oil and exposing the meatpacking industry. By discussing unfair labor practices. They created the revolution that roosevelt then took to the halls congress for were firm reform legislation for trust busting as we now know it. Journalists as muckrakers, but roosevelt devised the term to criticize them. He was a genius. He was a genius about his image, about photographers. He was going to do a thanksgiving day proclamation and the photographer was delayed so we simply canceled the event until which time he showed up and interrupted a diplomatic meeting to do it. He became the darling of photographers and caricaturists. If he did not quite get the technological revolution going on, he was just a bigger than life figure who was made for this transformation. And again, reaching out to givingists he liked and them access was revolutionary. Susan you credit tr with things that are common for us today, watching the president and the press leaks, trial balloons, and swapping the press with diversionary swamping the press with diversionary stories. Harold he coined the phrase. , one of his interesting techniques, and someone was going to make an announcement, he would put out a news release and do interviews so he could dominate the front pages. That teddy expected to be on the front page of every newspaper every day and when he wasnt, he was disappointed, which is probably true. Shouldounds familiar, it , because some of the ego driven aspect of president ial personality and practice is the idea that you are right and you should be constantly inscribed as such. Were issues he would float to see if they would gain traction. All of these things, including the bully pulpit, which he also coined the phrase to describe, wherein the president would use notpower of persuasion, necessarily legislation or executive order as we see today, to convince the American People of the righteousness of his cause. Susan famously, he invited booker t. Washington to the white house. Did he reach out to the black press at the time . Harold the booker t. Washington event was first a meeting. Most meetings with Teddy Roosevelt lasted longer than the schedule indicated because teddy would do so much talking that the guest would have to find some time to respond. It usually meant they were behind schedule. No exception when booker t. Washington arrived. Roosevelt said, why dont you stay for dinner . Dr. Washington did. Press in, most of the the north and the black press for sure, reported this is a great milestone. Abraham lincoln had had tea with an africanamerican journalist, frederick douglass, who was still a journalist when he had tea with Abraham Lincoln at the white house, he ran his own newspaper. But this is the jim crow era, and this set off the Southern Newspapers and southern senators in really vile ways. One senator said that black people would have to be lynched in greater numbers now because they would become so haughty about this social advance. To his credit i think roosevelt was casual about it, to his credit. To his discredit, i think the Administration Responded by first trying to deny the dinner had taken place, and then later taking that back in acknowledging that it was no big deal. So he did not use it as a wedge to widen access for africanamerican reporters or businesses. There was never another event of its kind again. There were advents in his Administration Events in his administration where teddy emonstrated lack of sympathy for africanamericans, including africanamerican soldiers. Gets a mixed record but he credit for this one innovation. Liked teddyess, roosevelt at the beginning. Minutes willnal 10 be with Woodrow Wilson. You called him chilly, that he had a socratic approach, and he was sensitive to perceived insults. How did he deal with the press . Harold he had his problems. Was professorial. He together with his staff devised the idea of the press conference. They are not what we see today with the briefings and scrums that take place at the white house every day. They were rigid affairs, questions were submitted in writing and wilson answered the questions very formally. He got irritated with questions he did not like, and most importantly, all of the press conferences were off of the record. His manner was severe. The newspapermen had been used to a raucous, jovial atmosphere with roosevelt, who had of course come back into their life as a candidate for president in 1912, the year that wilson defeated him and William Howard taft. The press liked roosevelt. One journalist gave a great description of what it was like to cover the white house from the roosevelt era to the wilson era, they said it was like going from a foundry full of activity to a convent, a cloistered atmosphere with everyone very quiet. Wilson came from a long line of newspapermen. One of his grandfathers had paper,for a philadelphia which had been founded to criticize George Washington. Wilson had been the editor of the Princeton College newspaper when he was a student. His own brother was the editor of a daily newspaper. So he understood journalism, he just did not like journalists, and he particularly did not like them when they wrote about or inquired about his family. Tr had been the same way but he had been up he had given up. He couldnt stop them from writing about his cute little boys and his eldest daughter, who smoked and was independent and great copy. Wilson did not like his daughters to be written about. When one photographer took a picture of them riding a bicycle, he said on the record i would like to punch you in the nose. After she got engaged, he stood up and gave a riproaring lecture about how the press has no right to invade the privacy as home privacy of his home, and he would see to it that they didnt. They asked if they could put that on the record and he said no. Many anomalies. He took the press to paris for the peace conference that negotiated the formal end of world war i. The french leader, who had been a journalist, did not think the press should be there, but wilson insisted. And yet when everyone got to paris, he excluded them from many proceedings. This did not make the book, by the way, because i did not think anybody would care to know about havedemic we do not pandemics anymore, as i finished in january. Hid himself and did not reveal the depth of his illness from the spanish flu, and some said he was close to death. It was the first incident of a president keeping his health secret from the press and it was one that wilson and his wife would repeat after he had a stroke when i got back to the u. S. Susan we have five minutes left. Would you talk about wilsons stroke and why reporters were not able to get to that story . An incapacitated president . Harold wilson was closed off in his upper bedroom. Some reporters knew he was seriously ill, very few wrote about the depths of it. Some wrote that he had gone insane. On an upper floor window and said that he had been restrained. It turns out they had been turned on they had been put on a nursery when trs boys were small and wild. Givingaked out, doctors what they thought were true reports, but they didnt. His wife cloaked his activities in total secrecy. He had already during the war cut down press conferences to a minimum. It is remarkable that he was able to conceal his health difficulties. But skipping ahead to our second conversation, so did john kennedy. Susan as we close out this first period, 130 years of American History and president s and the press, what is the most important thing to know about this period of time and how president s dealt with the press . Harold i think you hit on it earlier when you noted that the press started out revering president s, one president , it moved into strict partisan mode, supporting people in return for political jobs and printing contracts and also because they believed in them. 1890s, led by the new york times, reporting became more about news and less about political opinion. Appear tow president s take advantage of the fact that they were newsworthy and it was not all about politics. Newspapers become more ubiquitous, they become less partisan and they become more focused on news and personality. That is the evolution we see in the First Century and a half. If i can quickly add, the president s never lose their antipathy for press criticism and their punishment. Woodrow wilson created the committee on Public Information to circumvent and sensor the press censor the press in world war i and crated the biggest Public Relations machine ever seen out of the white house that point. T susan the president tries to circumvent the press by creating currying journalists favor with them, and that is an important part of the story as well. The desire to get around the press corps. Harold it is and it will continue to play out into the next 100 years, i am sure. Susan as we close, this is also a book about technology, during the first 150 years, what was the most significant advance in technology that impacted the relationship between president s and the press . Harold oh boy. Telegraph and telephone were certainly huge. Electric power was huge. The development of the steam press that would produce thousands of copies, beginning in the several war civil war era, per hour. Those were the key. Dont underestimate the telephone, the good old landline, because newspapermen would speak to a president and then find their way back to the press room, get me the city desk. Thats how it was done. Susan the book is called the president s versus the press. This is our first hour with harold, where we look at 150 years of American History, and the second and will second hour will bring it up to the modern day. Thank you for being with us. Harold thank you. All q a programs are available on our website or available as a podcast at cspan. Org. Cspans washington journal , every day taking your calls live on the air on the news of the day, and we discussed policy issues that impact you. Monday morning, a former fema director discusses femas role in the covid19 pandemic and recent natural disasters. And a discussion of federal spending and oversight. Watch washington journal monday morning. Be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook ments, text and tweets Text Messages and tweets. Monday morning, a conversation about the 2020 president ial election and the candidatess Foreign Policy agenda, hosted by the Atlantic Council at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan. Org or the free cspan radio app. Next, look into how u. S. Foreign policy plays a role in a voters decision on who would be the next president. The Atlantic Council held this virtual discussion. This is a fantastic panel that brings adaptive expertise to these topics. We have charlie cook who is editor and publisher of the coke political report. Ms. Leigh, with Lake Research partners, eight president and senior scholar at the American Enterprise institute, and christine, partner and cofounder of echelon insight. All. You lucky to have you for this discussion. I want to dive right in. I am really excited to talk to about this. Something i am interested in. Question for each of you that generally gets at the role of Foreign Policy in the 2020 election. How much do Americans Care about Foreign Policy, and how is that different from past elections that we have had recently, and start in this order if that works for you. Thank you. So i think how much Americans Care about Foreign Policy is one way to look at it, and i think , Foreign Policy is actually standing out for leadership style, and i think in the end, leadership and character will make a big difference in this election, and Foreign Policy will play a
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.