The Presidents vs. the Press

The Endless Battle Between the White House and the Media - from the Founding Fathers to Fake News

By: Harold Holzer

Narrated by: James Lurie

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.

©2020 Harold Holzer (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Harold Holzer has brought us a sweeping, groundbreaking and important history of the conflict between American presidents and the press, and it could not arrive at a more crucial moment." (Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian and New York Times best-selling author of Presidents of War)

"Harold Holzer's fascinating new book beautifully narrates the long history of contention between the press and the White House, but it does more than that. Presidential politics were born at the dawn of popular newspaper writing, and the fighting, seducing, and conniving on both sides has continued ever since. Presidents and reporters can't really exist without each other, and Holzer, a historian of the presidency with the eye of a reporter, expertly explains why." (Sean Wilentz, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln)

"Harold Holzer is a master in telling us exactly what we need to know - no more, no less - on a critical and obsessive relationship spanning 200 years. With a gimlet-eye, Holzer shows how some of our best presidents - from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln to Barack Obama - were the most resistant to press scrutiny." (Jonathan Alter, New York Times best-selling author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life)

Remarkable

The story covers some of the early presidents frustration and dealings with the press. It goes into more detail about how the presidents from FDR forward have sought to work with and manipulate the press, and when the press has allowed itself to be manipulated in order to either protect the image of the president, or maintain access. The narrator is also excellent.

Riveting !!

Beautifully written and methodically researched, this is a page turner. I absolutely loved it. And the reader was perfect!