The Unprecedented Presidency: War With The Media
Since the beginning of his Presidency, Donald Trump has had a very contentious relationship with the news media. On his first full day in office, he announced that he had a “running war” with the media, and called journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” He repeatedly refers to them as the "fake news media" and "the enemy of the people". He has publicly talked about taking away critical reporters' White House press credentials. Also on his first day in office, he falsely accused journalists of underestimating the size of the crowd at his inauguration. His first Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed the inauguration crowd had been the biggest in history.
On February 16, 2017, less than a month into his presidency, Trump held a press conference during which he claimed the news media were not speaking for the people, but for "special interests". He called them dishonest, out of control and said they were doing a disservice to the American people. The following day, Trump tweeted, "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!" Trump did not hold another formal press conference for several years.
Later in February of 2017, the administration denied reporters from The New York Times, BuzzFeed News, CNN, Los Angeles Times and Politico an invitation to attend an off-camera briefing with Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press chose not to attend the briefing in protest at the White House's actions. The New York Times described the move as "a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps", and the White House Correspondents' Association issued a statement of protest.
In August 2018, The Boston Globe called for a nationwide campaign against what it described as Trump's "dirty war" against the news media, with the hashtag #EnemyOfNone. More than 300 news outlets joined the campaign. Even the conservative New York Post wrote, "It may be frustrating to argue that just because we print inconvenient truths doesn't mean that we're fake news, but being a journalist isn't a popularity contest. All we can do is to keep reporting." The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote, "If the press is not free from reprisal, punishment or suspicion for unpopular views or information, neither is the country. Neither are its people". On August 16, 2018, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution affirming that "the press is not the enemy of the people."
In November 2018, following a contentious press conference, the White House revoked the press pass of Jim Acosta of CNN, who had frequently clashed with Trump. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and other Trump administration officials claimed that Acosta had touched a White House intern who tried to take away his microphone during the conference. CNN and Acosta sued the Trump administration, seeking restoration of Acosta's press pass on Due Process and First Amendment grounds. On November 16, 2019, Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a Trump appointee, ruled that the administration had violated Acosta's due process rights, and ordered the restoration of his press pass.
In August 2019, Trump criticized Fox News for "heavily promoting the Democrats", stating: "We have to start looking for a new News Outlet. Fox isn't working for us anymore!" In April 2020, Trump continued to criticize Fox News, alleging that they were being "being fed Democrat talking points". He continued to call for an "alternative" to Fox News.
Presidents warring with the media is certainly not unprecedented. Not the first, but perhaps the strongest example of this is found in Richard Nixon's contempt for the news media. Nixon kept a master list of his “enemies,” and dozens of the names on that list were members of the news media. For exampe, when Stuart Loory wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times in January 1971 about the cost of maintaining Nixon’s Western White House in San Clemente and a vacation property in Key Biscayne at taxpayers' expense, he was banned from entering the White House, He had previously written a column for six months critical of Henry Kissinger, then the special presidential advisor on foreign affairs
During the first 18 months of his administration, Nixon had received more airtime that his three predecessors did during a span of 16 years. Nearly 80% of the country’s newspapers endorsed Nixon for president in 1960 and 1968, and 93% did so again in 1972. But Nixon still felt that the media was his enemy. In December 1972, he told Henry Kissinger, "Never forget, the press is the enemy, the press is the enemy. Write that on the blackboard 100 times"
Vice president Spiro Agnew was instructed to give speeches attacking the media, referring to reporters, editors, and publishers as “small and unelected elite” who possess “broad powers of choice” and “decide what forty to fifty-million Americans will learn of the day’s events in the nation and the world.” According to Agnew, there was “a widening credibility gap between the national news media and the American people.” He alliteratively referred to them as the "nattering nabobs of negativity."
If the phrase “Tricky Dick” appeared in print, lawsuits were threatened over is use. Reporters’ phones lines were repeatedly tapped and the Internal Revenue Service was directed to investigate tax returns filed by Seymour Hersh and other journalists disliked by the Nixon White House. Publishers, like Katharine Graham of the Washington Post, were warned about what might result from continuing critical coverage. Most shocking perhaps were discussions had between Watergate burglars G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt about murdering Jack Anderson, a muckracking journalist, in order to end leaks that were damaging the administration. They considered smearing his steering wheel with LSD (presumably so he would hallucinate while driving and crash his car). Liddy, was more direct, stating, “I would have knifed him or broken his neck.”
Nixon defended his banning of Loory, stating" “They say, ‘But it’s the responsibility of the media to look at government generally, and particularly at the president, with a microscope.’ I don’t mind a microscope, but, boy, when they use a proctoscope, that’s going too far.”
Bill Clinton also had a rocky relationship with the media. and his administration “ramped up” message control, according to Patterson. According to Thomas Patterson, the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at the Harvard Kennedy School, Clinton "felt that they really mistreated him, misunderstood him, didn’t pay attention to policy accomplishments and got hung up on a dozen different kinds of scandals and whiffs of scandals and wouldn’t let go of those.” Those controversies included the Whitewater investigations and Monica Lewinsky scandal. At the start of his second term in January 1997, The Boston Globe described Clinton’s relationship with the news media as being at a level of deterioration “not seen in the White House in more than 20 years” and compared Clinton’s distrust as being on par with Nixon’s.
Even long before, Presidents complained about unfair media coverage. Thomas Jefferson complained about what he saw as the partisan nature of the press and began airing his grievances in personal letters stating, “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” During Jefferson’s campaign against John Adams, both men used the press to levy insults at each other. Jefferson-allied papers accused President Adams of being a hermaphrodite and a hypocrite, while Adams’ camp attacked Jefferson’s racial heritage, accusing him of being “the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father” as well as an atheist and libertine.
On February 16, 2017, less than a month into his presidency, Trump held a press conference during which he claimed the news media were not speaking for the people, but for "special interests". He called them dishonest, out of control and said they were doing a disservice to the American people. The following day, Trump tweeted, "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!" Trump did not hold another formal press conference for several years.
Later in February of 2017, the administration denied reporters from The New York Times, BuzzFeed News, CNN, Los Angeles Times and Politico an invitation to attend an off-camera briefing with Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press chose not to attend the briefing in protest at the White House's actions. The New York Times described the move as "a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps", and the White House Correspondents' Association issued a statement of protest.
In August 2018, The Boston Globe called for a nationwide campaign against what it described as Trump's "dirty war" against the news media, with the hashtag #EnemyOfNone. More than 300 news outlets joined the campaign. Even the conservative New York Post wrote, "It may be frustrating to argue that just because we print inconvenient truths doesn't mean that we're fake news, but being a journalist isn't a popularity contest. All we can do is to keep reporting." The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote, "If the press is not free from reprisal, punishment or suspicion for unpopular views or information, neither is the country. Neither are its people". On August 16, 2018, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution affirming that "the press is not the enemy of the people."
In November 2018, following a contentious press conference, the White House revoked the press pass of Jim Acosta of CNN, who had frequently clashed with Trump. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and other Trump administration officials claimed that Acosta had touched a White House intern who tried to take away his microphone during the conference. CNN and Acosta sued the Trump administration, seeking restoration of Acosta's press pass on Due Process and First Amendment grounds. On November 16, 2019, Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a Trump appointee, ruled that the administration had violated Acosta's due process rights, and ordered the restoration of his press pass.
In August 2019, Trump criticized Fox News for "heavily promoting the Democrats", stating: "We have to start looking for a new News Outlet. Fox isn't working for us anymore!" In April 2020, Trump continued to criticize Fox News, alleging that they were being "being fed Democrat talking points". He continued to call for an "alternative" to Fox News.
Presidents warring with the media is certainly not unprecedented. Not the first, but perhaps the strongest example of this is found in Richard Nixon's contempt for the news media. Nixon kept a master list of his “enemies,” and dozens of the names on that list were members of the news media. For exampe, when Stuart Loory wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times in January 1971 about the cost of maintaining Nixon’s Western White House in San Clemente and a vacation property in Key Biscayne at taxpayers' expense, he was banned from entering the White House, He had previously written a column for six months critical of Henry Kissinger, then the special presidential advisor on foreign affairs
During the first 18 months of his administration, Nixon had received more airtime that his three predecessors did during a span of 16 years. Nearly 80% of the country’s newspapers endorsed Nixon for president in 1960 and 1968, and 93% did so again in 1972. But Nixon still felt that the media was his enemy. In December 1972, he told Henry Kissinger, "Never forget, the press is the enemy, the press is the enemy. Write that on the blackboard 100 times"
Vice president Spiro Agnew was instructed to give speeches attacking the media, referring to reporters, editors, and publishers as “small and unelected elite” who possess “broad powers of choice” and “decide what forty to fifty-million Americans will learn of the day’s events in the nation and the world.” According to Agnew, there was “a widening credibility gap between the national news media and the American people.” He alliteratively referred to them as the "nattering nabobs of negativity."
If the phrase “Tricky Dick” appeared in print, lawsuits were threatened over is use. Reporters’ phones lines were repeatedly tapped and the Internal Revenue Service was directed to investigate tax returns filed by Seymour Hersh and other journalists disliked by the Nixon White House. Publishers, like Katharine Graham of the Washington Post, were warned about what might result from continuing critical coverage. Most shocking perhaps were discussions had between Watergate burglars G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt about murdering Jack Anderson, a muckracking journalist, in order to end leaks that were damaging the administration. They considered smearing his steering wheel with LSD (presumably so he would hallucinate while driving and crash his car). Liddy, was more direct, stating, “I would have knifed him or broken his neck.”
Nixon defended his banning of Loory, stating" “They say, ‘But it’s the responsibility of the media to look at government generally, and particularly at the president, with a microscope.’ I don’t mind a microscope, but, boy, when they use a proctoscope, that’s going too far.”
Bill Clinton also had a rocky relationship with the media. and his administration “ramped up” message control, according to Patterson. According to Thomas Patterson, the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at the Harvard Kennedy School, Clinton "felt that they really mistreated him, misunderstood him, didn’t pay attention to policy accomplishments and got hung up on a dozen different kinds of scandals and whiffs of scandals and wouldn’t let go of those.” Those controversies included the Whitewater investigations and Monica Lewinsky scandal. At the start of his second term in January 1997, The Boston Globe described Clinton’s relationship with the news media as being at a level of deterioration “not seen in the White House in more than 20 years” and compared Clinton’s distrust as being on par with Nixon’s.
Even long before, Presidents complained about unfair media coverage. Thomas Jefferson complained about what he saw as the partisan nature of the press and began airing his grievances in personal letters stating, “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” During Jefferson’s campaign against John Adams, both men used the press to levy insults at each other. Jefferson-allied papers accused President Adams of being a hermaphrodite and a hypocrite, while Adams’ camp attacked Jefferson’s racial heritage, accusing him of being “the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father” as well as an atheist and libertine.