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Front page from the White House: A quantitative study of personal news coverage from Teddy Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan

Streitmatter, Rodger Allan, Ph.D.

The American University,1988

Copyright ©1988 by Streitmatter, Rodger Allan. All rights reserved.

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FRONT PAGE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE:

A QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF PERSONAL NEWS COVERAGE

FROM TEDDY ROOSEVELT TO RONALD REAGAN

by

Rodger Streitmatter

submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

The Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

History

Signatures of Committee: Chairman: CUi£a^ A

the College

April 26, 1988 Date

1988 The American University Washington, D.C., 20016 U?o)'

UHIVEHSITY LIBRARY

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © COPYRIGHT

BY

RODGER STREITMATTER

1988

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FRONT PAGE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE;

A QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF PERSONAL NEWS COVERAGE

FROM TEDDY ROOSEVELT TO RONALD REAGAN

BY

RODGER STREITMATTER

ABSTRACT

Historians, political scientists, journalists,

politicians, and presidents have criticized today's press

for placing too much emphasis on personal news about the

president. Critics say presidential news coverage

increasingly centers on the man's personality and personal

trivia. This quantitative study challenges the criticism

by exploring personal news coverage of the twentieth

century's fifteen presidents. The study was designed to

deterime if personal news about recent presidents has

accounted for a larger portion of presidential news

coverage. Secondary purposes were to determine which

presidents have received the most and the least personal

coverage and to identify factors that have influenced the

amount of personal news coverage presidents receive.

Data were collected from a two-year sample period of

each man's presidency. The four major newspapers

ii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. studied— New York Times. Los Angeles Times. St. Louis

Post-Dispatch. and Atlanta Constitution— give the study

a national perspective while representing different political

leanings.

Results show that, contrary to general impressions,

early twentieth-century presidents received a higher

percentage of personal news than have recent presidents.

Data show personal stories represented the following

percentages of news coverage: T. Roosevelt, 51; Wilson,

24; Harding, 22; F. Roosevelt, 16; Coolidge, 15; Kennedy,

14; Truman and Johnson, 12; Reagan and Taft, 11; Carter,

10; Ford, 9; Hoover, 8 ; Eisenhower, 7; and Nixon, 5.

Regression analysis procedures used the aggregate data for

all the presidents to define a trend toward less personal

coverage of presidents. The regression coefficient was

found to be -.26.

Factors identified as influencing the magnitude of a

president's personal news coverage are: how early in the

century he serves, how newsworthy his personality and

personal life are, and how willing he is to provide the

press with liberal access to the White House and to him.

The study concludes that newspapers are wrongly

perceived as being preoccupied with personal coverage from

the White House because television news constantly airs

1 1 1

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. footage depicting trivial activities of the president.

Another conclusion is that today's major newspapers

are created, with regard to personal coverage from the

White House, with a higher degree of professionalism than

those of the past; they place very few personal stories

about the president on their front page.

The study suggests that its findings generally

support the previous scholarly research on the

press-president relationship. It also discusses the

study's repercussions on American newspapers, the American

presidency, and the country itself.

IV

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONTENTS

page

LIST OF TABLES ...... vi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ...... ix

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER I : HISTOGIOGRAPHY ...... 9

CHAPTER I I : PARAMETERS AND METHODOLOGY 35

CHAPTER I I I : DATA ANALYSIS ...... 64

CHAPTER IV : EARLY-PERIOD PRESIDENTS . . 108

CHAPTER V: MIDDLE-PERIOD PRESIDENTS . . 180

CHAPTER V I: RECENT-PERIOD PRESIDENTS . 228

CHAPTER V I I : TELEVISION NEWS ...... 306

CHAPTER V I I I : CONCLUSIONS ...... 324

APPENDIX ...... 347

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 355

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1. Presidential Endorsements of Newspapers Studied . 63

2. Presidents Listed Chronologically with Percent of Personal Coverage ...... 65

3. Presidents Ranked by Percent of Personal Coverage 6 6

4. New York Times Coverage ...... 70

5. Percentage of General News Devoted to Personal N e w s ...... 74

6 . Percentage of General News Devoted to Personal News (for Presidents Other Than Teddy Roosevelt) 78

7. Ranking of Presidents by Variation between "Expected" and Actual Personal Coverage ...... 81

8 . Regression Analysis Data for General News C o v e r a g e ...... 85

9. Regression Analysis Data for Personal News C o v e r a g e ...... 87

10. Regression Analysis Data for General News Coverage Other Than Personal ...... 91

11. Teddy Roosevelt's Newspaper Coverage ...... 112

12. Categories of Teddy Roosevelt's Personal Coverage 121

13. William Howard Taft's Newspaper Coverage .... 127

14. Categories of William Howard Taft's Personal C o v e r a g e ......

15. Woodrow Wilson's Newspaper Coverage ...... 140

VI

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16. Categories of Woodrow Wilson's Personal Coverage 150

17. Warren G. Harding's Newspaper Coverage ...... 157

18. Categories of Warren G. Harding's Personal C o v e r a g e ...... 165

19. Calvin Coolidge's Newspaper Coverage ...... 170

20. Categories of Calvin Coolidge's Personal Coverage 176

21. Herbert Hoover's Newspaper Coverage ...... 183

22. Categories of Herbert Hoover's Personal Coverage 190

23. Franklin Roosevelt's Newspaper Coverage . . = . 194

24. Categories of Franklin Roosevelt's Personal C o v e r a g e ...... 203

25. Harry Truman's Newspaper Coverage ...... 208

26. Categories of Harry Truman's Personal Coverage . 215

27. Dwight Eisenhower's Newspaper Coverage ...... 219

28. Categories of Dwight Eisenhower's Personal Coverage ...... 225

29. John Kennedy's Newspaper Coverage ...... 232

30. Categories of John Kennedy's Personal Coverage . 240

31. Lyndon Johnson's Newspaper Coverage ...... 245

32. Categories of Lyndon Johnson's Personal Coverage 254

33. Richard Nixon's Newspaper Coverage ...... 258

34. Categories of Richard Nixon's Personal Coverage . 264

35. Gerald Ford's Newspaper Coverage ...... 2 68

36. Categories of Gerald Ford's Personal Coverage . . 275

V l l

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11. Teddy Roosevelt's Newspaper Coverage ...... 112

37. Jimmy Carter's Newspaper coverage ...... 279

38. Categories of Jimmy Carter's Personal Coverage . 288

39. Ronald Reagan's Newspaper Coverage ...... 292

40. Categories of Ronald Reagan's Personal Coverage . 301

41. Television News Coverage from tne White House . . 315

42. Television News Coverage of the Presidential I m a g e ...... 317

43. Vacations/Personal Travel ...... 348

44. Immediate Family/Homelife Activities ...... 349

45. Social L i f e ...... 350

46. Interaction with "Little People" ...... 351

47. Interaction with Celebrities ...... 352

48. Personal Idiosyncrasies ...... 353

49. Ceremonial Events ...... 354

50. Extended Family ...... 3 5 5

Vlll

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Figure Page

1. Regression Analysis for Percentage of Coverage Devoted to Personal Coverage ...... 76

2. Regression Analysis for Percentage of Coverage Devoted to Personal Coverage (for Presidents Other Than Teddy R o o s e v e l t ...... 79

3. Regression Analysis for General News Coverage .. . 86

4. Regression Analysis for Personal News Coverage . . 88

5. Regression Analysis for General News Coverage Other Than Personal...... 92

IX

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION

"The media are preoccupied with personality, tending

in particular to overpersonalize the presidency."^

— Ben W. Heineman Jr., political activist, 1980

"1976 deserves to go down in history as the campaign

year in which 'junk news' came into its own. . . . The

media simply never took 'issues' s e r i o u s l y . " 2

— James McCartney, Washington correspondent for Knight-Ridder Newspapers, 1977

"Nancy Reagan's new White House china received more

attention in the press than most issues. . . . Raw

intricacies of a presidential tax proposal are not so 3 fortunate."

— George C. Edwards III and Stephen J. Wayne, political scientists, 1985

^Ben W. Heineman, Jr., Memorandum for the President; A Strategic Approach to Domestic Affairs in the 1980's (New York: Random House, 1980), 108.

2james McCartney, "The Triumph of Junk News," Columbia Journalism Review. January-February, 1977, 17.

^George C. Edwards III and Stephen J. Wayne, Presidential Leadership: Politics and Policv Making (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985), 156.

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"The public's right-to-know pennant is too often

hoisted to defend the reporting of outrageously trivial

things. And when such twaddle is reported seriously, the

journalist cheapens a noble principle."4

— Dick Haws, journalism professor, 1986

"A clip of convalescent Reagan waving from his window

at some circus elephants is going to push an analytical piece

about tax cuts off the air every t i m e . "5

— Sam Donaldson, ABC White House correspondent, 1985

"I would like for you all, as people who relay

Washington events to the world, to take a look at the

substantive questions . . . and quit dealing almost

exclusively with personalities. "6

— President Jimmy Carter, press briefing, 1979

During the past decade, historians, political

scientists, journalists, politicians, and presidents

^Dick Haws, "On the trail of sea bass and other twaddle," Quill, September 1986, 11

5 Edwards and Wayne, 158.

^Michael Baruch Grossman and Martha Joynt Kumar, "Carter, Reagan and the Media: Have the Rules Really Changed as the Poles of the Spectrum of Success?" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 3-9, 1981, in New York City.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3

themselves all have criticized today's press for placing

too much emphasis on personal news about the president of

the United States. Critics say that presidential news

coverage increasingly centers on the man's personality,

personal idiosyncrasies, and personal trivia. Critics say

that today's reporters and editors spend an excessive

amount of time and effort transforming the most

insignificant minutiae of the president's daily life into

front-page news. Critics further contend that the press

neglects coverage of crucial national and international

issues in favor of chronicling the number of times he bumps

his head on airplane doorjambs or the lustful feelings

inside his heart or any number of other minute details.

The accusations have arisen at a critical moment in

the history of American journalism. For the American press

is on trial today as it has never been before. When United

States military forces barred reporters from covering the

military action in Grenada in the fall of 1983, the dispute

uncorked a pent-up public hostility. NBC viewers supported

the press ban five to one. Time letters ran eight to one

against the press, and Editor and Publisher magazine found

that letters to the editor of daily newspapers supported the

ban three to one. "Public respect for journalism has fallen

dramatically in recent years, threatening one of the

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foundations of the country's democratic system," Time stated

in its cover story titled "Accusing the Press: What Are Its

Sins?"7

With the press coming under such public fire, there can

be no more delays in determining if the cacophony of press

criticism legitimately extends to personal news from the

White House.

The Fourth Estate can wait no longer to determine if,

indeed, the institution that has served as government

watchdog for two centuries recently has shifted to

concentrating more time, energy, and resources covering

presidential trivia than reporting presidential policy.

Nor can the journalistic profession wait any longer

before determining if today's major newspapers routinely

push important issues like the White House policy on

international trade to page 17 of the second section in

order to secure space on Page One for a story about the

first lady's favorite dress color— "The new color is known

as moonstone, a shade deeper than pearl."

With the public accusing the press of sins ranging

from inaccuracy to arrogance, responsible journalists

cannot ignore angry presidential statements such as this

7Time, "Journalism Under Fire," 12 December 1983, 76.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. assessment of the White House press conference:

"It is a waste of time. I came to Washington with the idea that close and cordial relations with the press could prove of the greatest aid. I prepared for the conferences . . . and talked freely and fully on all large questions of the moment. Some men of brilliant ability were in the group, but I soon discovered that the interest of the majority was in the personal and trivial rather than in principles and policies . "8

Nor can responsible journalists ignore frustrating

incidents such as this one recounted by the daughter of the

same president:

"I danced one night at the hotel with a Princeton boy, a casual acquaintance, . . . and the next day's morning newspapers announced that I was engaged to him. I was embarrassed, but father was incensed. He asked the correspondents to deny the story and all complied, except one who deliberately sent another yarn to his paper embellished with the usual nonsense about young love and romance. When father sent for him, he produced a telegram from his office in New York, saying 'Send more details. . . . Ignore diplomatic denials.'

If the 1980s' leading newspapers fill their front pages

with minutiae in order to mask the fact that they are not

willing to commit sufficient resources to the substantive

issues surrounding the leader of the Free World, then the

institution of American journalism— the very bedrock of

Sjohn Tebbel and Sarah Miles Watts, The Press and the Presidency: From George Washington to Ronald Reagan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 375.

9James E. Pollard, The Presidents and the Press (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1947), 634.

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democracy— is in jeopardy. And so is democracy itself.

Before this barrage of criticism destroys the

reputation and the status of the Fourth Estate, however,

this study intends to challenge the argument that today's

White House news coverage is dominated by minutiae about

the president's personality and personal life. This

quantitative study— the first comprehensive research study

of White House personal news— examines non-issue-oriented

newspaper coverage of all fifteen of the twentieth

century's presidents by strictly following proven research

methods. Those methods include identifying, measuring, and

classifying stories that have been published on the front

pages of major American newspapers during the past eighty

years. Each step of this study is aimed at discovering

what trends have evolved in personal news from the White

House during the past century.

Pundits most assuredly can find examples of

presidential trivia in today's newspapers, and those

examples undoubtedly can, at times, be too plentiful and be

given too much prominence. But during the comprehensive

examination of personal news coverage conducted for this

study, similar stories were found in newspapers carrying

folio lines from twenty, forty, sixty, eighty years ago.

For example, the story about the first lady's favorite

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dress color covered nine inches of the front page of the

St. Louis Post-Dispatch. But that story was not a product

of the 1980s. It appeared March 4, 1925. Likewise, the

quotations from the angry president and his frustrated

daughter are disturbing. But the quotations were not from

the Nixons or Fords or Johnsons or Carters. The statements

were made by Woodrow Wilson and his daughter, Eleanor, some

seventy years ago.

This study examines how four major newspapers have

covered all fifteen men who have served in the White House

this century. To complete this quantitative study, the

researcher read more than 5,000 front pages and closely

examined more than 3,000 presidential news stories that were

published during an eighty-year period. Those stories

measured some 74,000 column inches. To analyze personal

news coverage of the American presidency, this study has

amassed more than 26,000 individual pieces of information.

This study was designed to compare presidential news

coverage throughout the twentieth century to determine if

personal news about recent presidents has accounted for an

icreasingly larger portion of presidential news coverage.

Stated most succinctly, the purpose of this study is to

answer one fundamental question:

Question 1. Has the percentage of presidential news

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coverage devoted to personal news increased sharply in recent

years?

Data gathered to answer this question also enable the

researcher to consider three related questions. They are:

Question 2. Which twentieth century presidents have

received the most personal coverage?

Question 3. Which twentieth century presidents have

received the least personal coverage?

Question 4. What factors have influenced the amount

of personal news coverage twentieth century presidents have

received?

The analysis of these data define the history of

personal news coverage during the twentieth century and

proves that personal stories from the White House appear on

the front page far less frequently today than they did in

1902. By discovering this trend, the data offer a strong,

solid defense of today's news media with regard to their

treatment of presidential news. In so doing, the findings

provide the basis for an important counter-intuitive

argument that challenges the widespread beliefs among the

general public and the community of presidential scholars.

In short, the results of this study demand a complete

revision of the prevailing perceptions regarding personal

news from the White House.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I

HISTORIOGRAPHY

This is a ground-breaking study because it focuses on

a topic that has not previously been researched through a

comprehensive, historical approach. White House personal

news coverage is, however, an important topic that often

has been discussed in relation to such broad subjects as

the influence of the presidential personality, the

performance of the press, and the relationship between the

press and the president. A review of the literature on

these subjects illustrates the importance of personal news

from the White House. This material reveals that personal

news often is a crucial element in the discussion of these

broad topics. The diversity of the writers also emphasizes

the breadth and cross-disciplinary impact of presidential

personal news and identifies some of the major issues

relevant to the topic. The historiographical review that

follows is divided into four sections: Historians and

Political Scientists, Journalists, Presidential Advisers

and Politicians, and Press-President Scholars.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Historians and Political Scientists

The bureaucratic state must have a face. It wants a personality to supply blood and guts to the form of rule. It needs the President as the frozen pond needs a skater to make a winter scene perfectly human .1 0 — Alfred de Grazia, political scientist, 1965

A surge of historical and political science research

about the presidential personality began to appear in the

late 1960s. One catalyst to such research was the advent

of television and the subsequent analysis of the political

impact of this new medium. In the seminal work. The

Imperial Presidency, for example, Arthur M. Schlesinger

attributed the ascendancy of the presidency partially to

the decline of political parties due to the electronic

revolution. "Television now presented the politicians

directly to the voters,Schlesinger said. The

presidency stands out in majesty as the central focus of

political emotion, Schlesinger said, and the American

people want to respect and also to adore their presidents.

10Alfred de Grazia in The Presidency, ed. Aaron Wildavsky (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969), 71.

llArthur M. Schlesinger, Jr, The Imperial Presidency (Boston; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1973), 209.

10

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The electronic revolution, having helped dissolve the parties, also helped exalt the Presidency by giving the man in the White House powerful means, first through radio and then through television, to bring his presence and message into every home in the l a n d . 1 2

Interest in presidential personality led to works by

hundreds of presidential scholars. Library shelves

overflowed with titles emphasizing the presidential

personality. Representative titles include: Presidents

Are People Too (1966), Presidential Leadership: Personality

and Political Stvle (1966), A Verv Personal Presidencv

(1968), Choosing Our Kina: Powerful Symbols in Presidential

Politics (1974), A Very Human President (1975),

Presidential Stvle: Some Giants and a Pvomv in the White

House (1976), and The Presidential Character (1977).

Increased emphasis on presidential personality

is well illustrated by the work of political scientist

Louis W. Koenig. In 1964, Koenig wrote The Chief

Executive. a comprehensive study that dissected the

president's roles as party chief, legislative leader,

administrator, diplomat, commander-in-chief, and economic

leader. Koenig did not even list the word "personality" in

the index.

Four years later, when Koenig revised his study of

1 2 lbid., 2 1 0 .

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the presidency, he added only one chapter: Personality.

Koenig had become impressed with the impact and the

consequences of the president's personal life and personal 13 traits. "If we are to understand why the Chief Executive

decides, speaks, and acts as he does, we must examine his

personality," Koenig said in the 1968 revision of his book.

Like many scholars, Koenig had come to recognize the

presidency as a flexible institution that can change

radically when a new man enters the White House.

The Presidency is plastic and responsive to variations in the political personality of its incumbents. . . . Lesser offices can be regulated, institutionalized, and bureaucratized, but the Presidency has eluded the rigidity and servitude of impersonality.14

Koenig also entered the personality-versus-issues

debate, indicting the press for placing too much

emphasis on personality.

On occasion it has appeared that how the President does things is more important than what he does. . . . An underachiever who is blessed with a collection of traits or style that delights the public and even the historian may fare better in the public opinion of his day or in his country's annals than the over­ achiever whose major sin may be that he does not possess a comparably pleasing s t y l e . 15

1 3 l o u 1 s W. Koenig, The Chief Executive. 2d ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968), vii.

1 4 i b i d . , 329.

1 5 l b i d . , 344.

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One critical observation by press-president

scholars was that journalists are not guided solely by

objective criteria, such as the number of people

affected by an event or the monetary consequences of an

event. Subjective elements also have impact on news

judgment that is, by its very name, an exercise in human

judgment. Historian James MacGregor Burns, for example,

observed in 1966 that journalists are subjective in

processing news. In his book. Presidential Government;

The Crucible of Leadership. Burns wrote:

Reporters, editors, and other participants are not wholly neutral in reporting events. They exercise discretion in how they report 'facts' and in what facts they consider worth reporting. Wire men, make-up men, headline writers, press services— all, to varying degress, 'manage' the news.16

Political scientist James David Barber made a

similar point a decade and a half later in The Pulse of

Politics; Electing Presidents in the Media Acre.

The journalist is, at the heart of his calling, a storyteller. His attention is is attuned to notice, in the flux of facts, just those features that lend themselves to interesting, novel narrative. The idea of the reporter as blotter, passively soaking up the inchoate slop his perceptual organs get wet with, is too trivial and naive to

IGjames MacGregor Burns, Presidential Government: The Crucible of Leadership (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966), 181.

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give us pause. Reporters are sentient beings and thus selective perceivers.^-7

Presidential personality scholarship has grown

progressively more sophisticated and more analytical.

Barber, in his 1977 book. The Presidential Character:

Predicting Performance in the White House, used social

science models to categorize presidential personalities

as a way of looking at both past and future presidents.

Barber, defining presidential character as the basic

stance a man takes toward life, divided American

presidents into four character types. Barber's

baselines were activity-passivity, determined by how

much energy the man invests in his work, and

positivity-negativity, determined by how much fun the

man seems to have as president. Barber classified

Calvin Coolidge, for example, as passive-negative and

Franklin Roosevelt as active-positive, saying the two

men represent opposite ends of a personality continuum.

Coolidge was quiet and reserved, sometimes sleeping

eleven hours a day and doing his work with little

apparent enjoyment; Roosevelt was robust and outgoing,

lapping up every second of the presidency.

l^james David Barber, The Pulse of Politics: Electing Presidents in the Media Age (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1980), 11.

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Recent studies have gone beyond describing

presidential personality, discussing why the media

devote so much coverage to personal news from the White

House and what long-term effects this phenomenon may

have. Political scientists George C. Edwards III and

Stephen J. Wayne, for example, included a chapter on the

press in their 1985 book. Presidential Leadership:

Politics and Policy Making. A chapter sub-section on

"Superficiality of Press Coverage" summarized complaints

about journalists' preference for personal and trivial

matters over policies and substantive issues. The book

then analyzed why journalists write such stories.

Personal news is always in demand, according to the

authors, because readers and viewers relate to personal

matters much more easily than they relate to complex

matters of public policy. Edwards and Wayne quoted a

White House correspondent for a newspaper chain as

saying:

"It's a lot easier for me to get into several newspapers in the chain with a story about Amy (Carter) than with a story about an important policy decision. If they use both, the Amy story is likely to get on page one, while the policy story will be buried on page 29. "18

The authors also discussed the competitive news

ISEdwards and Wayne, 158.

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marketplace as a factor in the quest for presidential

trivia. With so many news organizations stalking the

president, each reporter constantly searches for some

piece of minutiae that he or she can quickly report in

order to be one up on the competition— or at least to

give that appearance. "One of the causes of superficial

press coverage of the presidency is the demands of news

organizations for information that is new and different,

personal and intimate, revealing and unexpected,"19

Edwards and Wayne said.

Increased personal coverage has serious

consequences, Edwards and Wayne wrote, because such

coverage ultimately leads to major problems for

presidents and the nation. "The fact that Americans pay

relatively little detailed attention to politics and

policy adds further support to the view that the

president's personality plays a large role in the

public's approval of him."20 After the people approve

of the president's personality and elect him to the

White House, however, policy matters play a large role

in evaluations of that president, the authors said. In

other words, people want personal information about the

19ibid., 158.

2 0 lbid., 1 1 2 ,

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president in order to elect the man they want, but then

people judge the president on the programs and policies

he enacts. When the honeymoon ends and the nation feels

the impact of presidential programs, people become

dissatisfied with the president. This pattern has

plagued many recent administrations.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Journalists

A second category of scholarship has developed as

journalists have criticized their coverage of the

presidential personality and personal news. The volume of

criticism by journalists is neither as large nor as

scholarly as that of the historians and political

scientists, however, with journalistic observations most

often written as articles. In 1970, for example. New York

Times columnist James Reston wrote that presidential

observers were waiting for a president to exploit

television for his political advantage.

President Eisenhower had the personality, the popularity, and the ability to use television in this way, but not the will. President Kennedy had the ability and the will to use it, but for some unexplained reason, was afraid of what he called over-exposure. President Johnson had the will, but neither the personality nor the ability to use it effectively. 21

Reston said Nixon was attempting to take issues

directly to the people via television.

Journalists coined the term "junk news" to describe

the election-trivia variety of details sought by reporters.

21James Reston, "Washington: The Power of the Presidency and Television," The New York Times. 28 January 1970, 44.

18

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Sanford J. Ungar, then Washington editor of The Atlantic

Monthly. wrote an article titled "By Trivia Obsessed" in

the Columbia Journalism Review in 1977. Ungar described

the superficiality of campaign coverage and the details that

Ron Nessen, President Gerald Ford's press secretary,

provided to reporters on election night in 1976. Nessen

described details such as exactly what Ford ate for dinner

. . . "beef Stroganoff, seafood creole, salad, fresh fruit,

and pastries. And cherry tomatoes. Nessen formed a small

circle with his thumb and index finger to indicate the

tomatoes' size, lest there be any misunderstanding."22 The

Ungar article was packaged with one by James McCartney,

Washington correspondent for the Knight-Ridder newspaper

chain. "The Triumph of Junk News" said detailed news

crossed the line into inconsequential trivia for the first

time during the 1976 campaign. "The press was churning out

an unprecedented volume of issueless news,"23 McCartney

wrote, while totally ignoring speeches on serious issues.

By the end of the campaign it had become a cliche among editorialists, columnists, and commentators that there were no 'issues,' that it had been a vapid, mean, and little campaign.

22sanford J. Ungar, "By Trivia Obsessed," Columbia rournalism Review. January/February 1977, 17.

23McCartney, 18.

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Pundits from organizations that had often themselves not reported issues attacked the candidates for failing to conduct a high-level campaign.24

In 1985, the Center for the Study of Democratic

Institutions brought eight correspondents together for a

symposium on covering the White House. "The White House

press corps is preoccupied with everything the President

does, said W. Dale Nelson, an Associated Press reporter

who covered Washington for thirty-five years. "When Ronald

Reagan pounds his fist on the table— as he did one

day— there are reams of stories about why he pounded his

fist, how hard he pounded it, and— "2^ Laurence I. Barrett,

Time magazine, interrupted: "If the press would not make a

fuss over that fist pounding, the White House would not be

peddling that type of story so r e a d i l y . "27 Karen Tumulty

of the Los Angeles Times asked: "Is it naive to think that

the way to make President Reagan answer questions about

major issues is to continue writing stories about those

issues, and not inundate the American public with the

2 4 i b i d .

25Center Magazine. "Covering the White House, " November/December, 1985, 30.

26ibid., 32.

27ibid.

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reporting of minutiae?"28 Lou Cannon, a Washington Post

reporter, said: "There should be more substantive stories.

And I do not see why— given the competitiveness of the news

media— there cannot be more stories of substance and less

of trivia."29

Many journalists point to the White House as the

culprit that created superficial reporting. Barrett said:

"President Reagan's adroitness at manipulation was at its

zenith during the 1984 Presidential c a m p a i g n . "30 Barrett

also said.

His people would stage scenes— all of which were covered by television— that the television commentator explained were meaning­ less. But simply because the scenes were televised, the pictures themselves overwhelmed the reporter's explanations.31

Some journalists have touched upon the issue of the

press and the presidential personality while chronicling

their experiences as Washington reporters. Such longer

works provide more analysis. James Deakin, who retired

from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1980, published

Straight Stuff— The Reporters, the White House, and the

ZGlbid., 35.

^9Ibid., 36.

30lbid., 32.

S^Ibid.

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Truth. in 1984. Deakin described the struggle to report

the truth despite the government's huge news-management

machine. A secondary theme was the growing superficiality

of Washington reporting, particularly from the White House.

The press decided that nothing about the chief executive was too trivial to be reported. American journalism, with a few prominent exceptions, is incorrigibly super­ ficial. The media focus lovingly on the momentary, the transitory and the gossipy. They deal in instant celebrities, puerile personalities and honest-to-God nuts. They are obsessed with fads and f r i p p e r i e s .32

Deakin traced the birth of trivial coverage to an

incident in 1959 when President Dwight Eisenhower was

conferring with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.

A reporter asked a question of stagger­ ing insignificance. Eisenhower's press secretary, Jim Hagerty, should have disdained to answer. But Hagerty would answer anything that kept the spotlight riveted on "hard news." Hagerty: "I have one bit of hard news. Mr. (Andrew) Berding (State Department spokesman) was asked this morning if the president was sleeping in a four-poster bed, and the answer is yes, and also if he had ever slept before in a four-poster bed, and the answer is also yes." This time, the British led a revolution. Hugh Pilcher of the London Daily Herald roared: "Mr. Hagerty, are any of us to take these briefings seriously? Are we going to hear anything about the great international issues.

32James Deakin, Straight Stuff— The Reporters, the White House, and the Truth (New York: William Morrow and Company Inc., 1984), 309.

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or are we going to hear simply what they ate? . . . Now, a straight answer for once."33

David S. Broder, political correspondent for the

Washington Post, discussed trivial personal news in his

1987 book, Behind the Front Page; A Candid Look at How

the News Is Made.

Nothing is more distasteful or more distracting than the preoccupation with the mundane doings of the First Family. But every recent President has been subjected to unwanted and unnecessary publicity about his relationships with various siblings, children, and even grandchildren. . . . There is no need for this kind of junk journalism, and no excuse for it.34

Broder suggested that every time a news organization

runs a feature story on the private life of a presidential

relative, such as Billy Carter, that newspaper or network

should be required to run a full-scale analysis of a complex

topic, such as zero-base budgeting or Carter's task force

on governmentral reorganization. "That would break them of

the h a b i t , Broder said.

83ibid.

34David S. Broder, Behind the Front Page; A Candid Look at How the News Is Made (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 205.

35ibid., 206.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Presidential Advisers and Politicians

A third category of criticism of the press and the

presidential personality has been created by presidential

advisers and politicians, sometimes including presidents

themselves. Just as journalists tend to blame the govern­

ment for superficial news, critics from the other side tend

to defend themselves and to blame the press.

George E. Reedy, press secretary to President Lyndon

Johnson, took the lead in this category of criticism in his

1970 book. The Twilight of the Presidencv. Reedy said the

news media have re-defined front-page news when covering the

president. Coverage extends to the president's personal

friends, routine habits and intimate moments with his family,

Reedy said. "There is no other official of the government

who can make a top headline story merely by releasing a

routine list of his daily activities,"36 Reedy said.

There is no other official of the government who can be certain of universal news­ paper play by merely releasing a picture of a quiet dinner with boyhood friends. There is no other official who can attract public attention merely by granting an interview consisting of

George E. Reedy, The Twilight of the Presidencv (New York: The New American Library, 1970), 101-2.

24

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reflections, no matter how banal or mundane, on social trends in fields where he has no expertise and in which his concepts are total^ irrelevant to his function as public servant.3/

Daniel P. Moynihan, a United States senator from New

York, made a similar comment in The Presidencv Reappraised.

a 1974 book edited by historians Rexford G. Tugwell and

Thomas E. Cronin. "The President has a near limitless

capacity to 'make' news that must be reported, if only by

reason of competition between one journal, or one medium,

and another,"88 Moynihan said. Joining those who blame

television, Moynihan said, "The President-in-action almost

always takes precedence"39 in the electronic media, which

are limited to fewer stories than the print media.

Jody Powell, President Jimmy Carter's press secretary,

added to press-personality criticism in his 1984 book. The

Other Side of the Story. Reporters generally are

apolitical and have little interest in developing an

ideology, Powell said, but are motivated by economic bias

because they know they will be out of work unless they make

their stories interesting. "Members of the press wrestle

87lbid., 102.

38Rexford G. Tugwell and Thomas E. Cronin, eds.. The Presidency Reappraised (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974), 148.

39lbid., 149.

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with the most basic and pervasive of human motivations:

greed and ambition. If you want to get ahead, it is good to

be accurate, but you had damn well better be interesting and

salable."4® With regard to personal coverage of the

president, Powell's sharpest criticisms came in the chapter

called "Trash in Journalism." Powell said he and other

members of the Carter administration were not prepared for

the "talebearing" of Washington reporters. "Nor were we

prepared for the relationship between what some people call

news and others call gossip,"41 Powell said. "The

(small-town) party line has been replaced by network

television."42

Powell used stories about Amy Carter to illustrate

excessive and unfair personal coverage. "Nothing during the

entire four years of the Carter administration left me more

bitter, nor with a more abiding revulsion for those

responsible, than the way Amy Carter was treated by some in

the press,"43 Powell said. Amy was portrayed as a spoiled,

unhappy, gawky, unattractive child, Powell said, simply

^^Jody Powell, The Other Side of the Storv (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1984), 16.

41ibid., 118. 42lbid. 43ibid., 120.

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because Jimmy Carter's years in Washington coincided with

his daughter's awkward years between little girl and young

woman— ages 8 to 12. Powell traced the negative impression

of Amy to her first day at school, when newspapers all over

the country showed a little girl with her eyes down and her

head ducked as she entered a school building.

The impression was of a terribly self-conscious little girl on the verge of tears because she had to go to school. The fact was that there was ice on the sidewalk and her downcast eyes and serious expression were the result of a desire not to lose her f o o t i n g . 4 4

After that one day, Powell said, the press sought out

stories and photographs to reinforce the initial image.

4 4 i b i d . , 124.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Press-President Scholars

Although legions of historians, political scientists,

journalists, presidential advisers and politicians have

studied the presidential personality and the press, most

have concentrated on recent administrations. Very few

presidential scholars have immersed themselves in the

subject of the history of the relationship between the press

and the president, the topic of this study. Only four major

efforts have concentrated on this subject, and only one of

them has attempted to compare how presidents over an

extended period of time have related to the press.

The pioneer in the study of presidential dealings with

the press is James E. Pollard, a former newspaperman who

taught journalism at Ohio State University. With publica­

tion of his first book, The Presidents and the Press, in

1947, Pollard provided the first study that looked at

press-presidential relations of the various presidents. His

comprehensive, 860-page study described the interplay

between reporters and each of the thirty-two presidents who

had served up to that time. Pollard's chapter-per-president

organization included how each president dealt with

correspondents and how friendly alliances occasionally

28

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developed between a president and individual newsmen.

Pollard paid considerable attention to the evolution of the

White House press conference.

Although Pollard's treatment was competent and his

documentation thorough, the political and intellectual

background in the book was sketchy. The book was more a

catalogue than an analysis. Pollard collected the material

necessary to analyze press-president relations and to

identify trends in news manipulation, opinion management and

the responsibility of the press in a democracy, but he

skirted these issues. Pollard ended the book with no

summary, no interpretation, no generalizations about the

press and the presidency. The reader was left with a laundry

list of facts about thirty-two men and the reporters covering

them, but with no insightful analysis into how the

press-president relationship had evolved.

Pollard published his second book. The Presidents and

the Press; Truman to Johnson, in 1964, during the period

that historians and political scientists had begun to

consider the impact of the presidential personality. In the

introduction, Pollard echoed some of the thoughts being

expressed by other presidential scholars. Informal comments

have increasing significance in the public's perception of

the president, Pollard said, and such informal comments may

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overshadow formal statements. "An off-hand remark at a

presidential news conference may produce wider repercussions

than a formal state p a p e r . "45

Pollard remained the only major scholar of

press-president relations until the end of the 1970s. Then

appeared two significant studies about the relationships

between the press and individual presidents.

FDR and the Press, published by Graham J. White in

1979, focused on a president who had major impact on

press-president relations. The thesis of White's book was

that Franklin Roosevelt adhered to historian Claude Bowers's

theory that American presidential leadership is either

Jeffersonian or Hamiltonian. According to White, Roosevelt

read Bowers's Jefferson and Hamilton, published in 1925,

and thereafter saw himself as a second Thomas Jefferson.

According to White, Roosevelt believed the role of the press

is to serve the oligarchy and the role of the president is

to preserve American democracy from the greedy grasp of the

elite, which FDR defined as the press barons, according to

White. "To Franklin Roosevelt the power of such newspaper

owners, excessive and unmerited, constituted a threat not

45james E. Pollard, Presidents and the Press; Truman to Johnson (Washington, D.C.; Public Affairs Press, 1964), 13.

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merely to press freedom, but to democracy itself."48

Roosevelt insisted that 85 percent of the press opposed him.

White wrote, even though his staff provided him with proof

to the contrary.

White's study is on its most solid ground in

challenging Roosevelt's insistence that a huge majority

of newspapers opposed him editorially, that hostile news­

paper owners forced reporters to slant stories against the

administration, and that all newspaper columnists opposed

his programs. White questioned the validity of all three

charges.

One obvious weakness of White's study is its narrow

scope in dealing with only one president. But the book also

suffers from other major weaknesses. FDR was important to

the evolution of press-president relations because of his

pivotal role in the development of White House news

management, but White virtually ignored this element. In

addition, White provided no quantitative data to attest to

whether or not Roosevelt's relationship with the

press— regardless of its ideological roots— paid off with

increased news coverage.

News From the White House; the Presidential-Press

48craham J. White, FDR and the Press (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1979), 2.

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Relationship in the Progressive Era, published by George

Juergens in 1981, in some ways is the best book yet written

about interaction between the press and the president.

Juergens, a history professor at Indiana University,

thoughtfully explored the first two decades of the 20th

century when, he argued, politics and mass media were welded

together into a symbiotic relationship.

It is no coincidence that the modern presidency and modern Washington press corps both came of age during the Progres­ sive period. Each had much to do with the emergence of the other.47

Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and

Woodrow Wilson needed the newspapers to reach the swelling

population of newspaper readers; newspapers needed the

presidents to provide the objective news that had become the

staple of Progressive era journalism. In addition, Juergens

observed, the papers saw the president as an important

source of human interest stories, which also grew to new

importance during the era.

The biggest drawback to Juergens's 300-page work is

its limited scope in covering only three presidents.

Although Juergens skillfully analyzed the three men as

representing three distinct personality types and three

47ceorge Juergens, News From the White House; the Presidential-Press Relationship in the Progressive Era (Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1981), 12.

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unique ways of dealing with the press, covering three of

forty presidents leaves a large gap. A second drawback is

that Juergens failed to use any quantitative measures to

test how the three presidents' varying approaches to the

press affected the amount of news coverage they received.

A major breakthrough in press-president historiography

occurred in 1985 when journalism professors John Tebbel and

Sarah Miles Watts published The Press and the Presidencv;

From George Washington to Ronald Reagan. Their 580-page

book combined the comprehensive nature of Pollard with the

analysis of Juergens. They relied heavily on anecdotes

taken from Pollard, but they did not simply look at the

individual presidencies in isolation. Instead, Tebbel and

Watts used the material to analyze the evolution of

press-president relations. They used each president to

build toward their Schlesinger-like thesis;

The presidency has evolved into an imperialistic institution which is now capable of manipulating and controlling the media, and through them the public, in ways beyond the vision of the Founding Fathers. Government is now, consequently, in a position to exert the controls that the architects of the Bill of Rights, and particularly the First Amendment, expressly sought to prevent.48

Tebbel and Watts, exhibiting absolutist free-press

^^Tebbel and Watts, vi.

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values, built a case against Nixon and Reagan as two

villains who demonstrated that presidential power can

nullify the First Amendment. The authors stressed that

most presidents have sought more press control and ways to

go over the heads of the media, with Reagan representing

the triumph of the imperial presidency over the media.

Their analysis included the observation that

virtually all press-president relationships begin with a

honeymoon period followed by dissatisfaction that may

degenerate into hostility. The analytical reader of

Pollard's works could have found this pattern, but Tebbel

and Watts relieved the reader of having to make the

analytical effort.

Deficiencies of the book included limited use of

primary sources. The authors relied on Pollard and on

paraphrases of newspaper articles rather than original

stories. Another shortcoming was that Tebbel and Watts,

like their predecessors, relied too heavily on anecdotal

material. They failed to support their narrative analysis

with quantitative data to measure the results the

presidents and their media manipulation actually had on the

amount of news coverage devoted to them.

In conclusion, it is clear that the current study had

the potential of adding significantly to the scholarship

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described in this chapter. The most obvious way in which

this study could add to the body of knowledge about

personal coverage of presidents is that this study is the

fi%st research to provide quantitative data on the topic.

Previous work has taken a narrative approach and has been

based entirely on theory and anecdotal material.

The data gathered for this study do not, however,

support the existing scholarship. Indeed, the most

significant finding— that there has been a trend toward

less personal coverage of recent presidents— challenges the

findings of previous studies. For example, political

scientists Edwards and Wayne have said that trivial White

House coverage has increased in recent years. This study's

findings refute that interpretation. It is clear that the

quantitative results of this study demand that presidential

scholars revise some of their long-held theories regarding

personal news from the White House.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER II

PARAMETERS AND METHODOLOGY

Parameters

This study is designed to answer several fundamental

questions regarding personal coverage from the White House,

but it does not presume to undertake answering all

questions relevant to this vast topic. With any research,

it is essential to define the scope of study. Three

important boundaries of this study can be described under

the headings: Television News, Newspaper Design, and

Favorable/Unfavorable News.

Television News

When considering the criticism that today's news

media devote too much time and attention to White House

personal news at the expense of issues, it is impossible to

overstate the role of television news. Television, unlike

newspapers, can deliver stories visually and almost

immediately. When something important happens, television

is on the air, taking the viewer to the scene. Despite two

centuries of publishing, American newspapers have never

36

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approached the impact and intensity with which television

has brought news events into American living rooms.

In 1981, for example. Time magazine said of print

news coverage of the Reagan assassination attempt:

Thirty years ago, such comprehensive reporting would have been the talk of journalism. But last week its impact was dimmed by television's performance— often confused, sometimes wrong, but always breathtaking. For one draining afternoon, TV turned America into a giant n e w s r o o m . 49

Surveys indicate that 98 percent of American homes

have a television set that operates an average of seven

hours a day. The average American child watches 5,000 hours

of television before entering first grade.Television

news has grown in impact and importance because it offers

the American people an easy, often entertaining means of

receiving the day's news. Watching television news requires

far less time and effort than does reading a newspaper.

The pervasiveness of television news suggests that

perhaps this study should be based on television coverage

rather than on newspaper coverage. This study focuses on

newspaper coverage for four reasons.

First, this study takes a historical approach to

49e . Graydon Carter, Time. 13 April 1981, 107-08.

5%eil Postman, "On Values: Amusing Ourselves to Death," Discovery YMCA. March/April 1985, 23.

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personal news from the White House. Its thrust is to

compare today's personal coverge with personal coverage of

the past. The newspaper is the ideal news medium through

which to gauge historical changes because the newspaper has

a long history. American newspapers have existed for some

200 years; television news has existed four decades.

Newspaper archives allow a researcher to study newspaper

coverage since the turn of the century; television news

archives would allow a researcher to study coverage going

no further into history than the 1960s.

Second, newspapers are the most respected source of

news in the United States. The New York Times is the

country's newspaper of record, and newspapers in general

speak most authoritatively on the news of the day.

Television provides news quickly and in a more convenient

form, ljut Americans in positions of power and leadership do

not depend solely on television for their news. The major

television networks have only twenty-two minutes— when

commercial breaks are accounted for— to summarize national

and international events of the day. Under such time

constraints, network news cannot match the comprehensive

coverage that is the mainstay of American newspapers.

Every one of the Times's 100 or more pages of news that

appear each day contains 30 percent more words than an

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entire network evening news broadcast.

Third, television is not a medium of substance.

"The differences between television and print news are

basic," Broder wrote. "Television is a picture medium;

its strength lies in images. Words . . . take second

place."51 Because of television's strong emphasis on

visual images, many critics argue that television is not a

news medium. They stress that decisions regarding which

stories to be broadcast are based largely on what film is

available, not the news value of a story. "A TV news show

is only marginally concerned with public information,"52

said Neil Postman, a scholar of how communication affects

people.

Fourth, because this study examines White House

personal news coverage in newspapers, one of its most

significant goals becomes attempting to answer the

question: Have American newspapers succumbed to the

pressures of television's emphasis on personalities? By

looking at White House personal coverage in newspapers over

the last eight decades, this study is able to compare data

before television against data during the years that

television news has been at is most powerful. The data can

S^Broder, 145.

52postman, 25.

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show if the intense competition from television, which

places the president's image before 50 million Americans

every night, has caused newspapers to shift their focus to

the personalities and personal lives of presidents. The

data will be able to indicate, in other words, if American

newspapers have "caved in" to the economic and societal

pressures of television.

Newspaper Design

American newspapers look very different today than

they did eighty years ago. Some of the earliest issues of

newspapers examined in this study contained only one

ten-page section. Some of the most recent issues, on the

other hand, contained as many as ten sections and numbered

some 800 pages.

During this century, the newspaper industry has felt

strong competition from radio, from specialized magazines

and from television. So the daily newspaper has attempted

to appeal to a larger portion of the population by

expanding its sections to include different types of news.

Sports news and business news, for example, received very

little attention early in the century, but they now are

considered two of the most important subjects in the daily

newspaper, typically demanding at least one independent

section in each edition. Of particular relevance to this

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study is the introduction and evolution of the features

section, lifestyle section, and magazine section of the

daily newspaper. Because of these additional sections,

many personal stories about the president would be shifted

from the front page to these more personality-oriented

sections.

This change in the design of the American newspaper

could lead to the suggestion that this study, by examining

only the front page, ignores all the personal coverage that

the American newspaper has shifted into its features,

lifestyle, and magazine sections. This study could be

criticized, therefore, for having a myopic view. It could

be charged that the study is not valid because it examines

only the personal stories on the front page of the

newspaper while ignoring the expansive personal coverage in

the inside sections of the American newspaper. While

acknowledging this evolution, this study has focused on the

front page for four reasons.

First, the front page is the only standard of

comparison that has existed as part of the American

newspaper throughout the period being examined. Every one

of the 5,040 newspapers examined contained a front page;

many of those newspapers did not, however, contain a

section devoted solely to features or lifestyle stories.

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To compare any part of the newspaper but the front page

would be to compare "apples and oranges."

Second, confining the search for presidential stories

on the front page brought the study within a manageable

framework. Even when the researcher focused only on

front-page news, the data collection phase of this study

required a commitment of more than 1,000 hours. If the

scope of the data collection had been expanded to every

page of those 5,040 newspapers, the time commitment would

have increased ten-fold even for the earliest newspaper

editions and 100-fold for many of the most recent editions.

Such an expansion would have taken the time commitment beyond

the manageable level.

Third, the front page of the daily newspaper has long

been accepted as a methodological standard for quantitative

research of newspaper coverage. "Front pages tend to

attract more reader attention than the average inside

page," Elmer E. Cornwell, Jr., wrote in his 1959 pioneering

study on the expansion of presidential news coverage. "The

front page was reserved in the newspapers studied for the

most important news during the period under examination."53

Fourth, and by far the most important reason for

^^Elmer E. Cornwell, "Presidential News: The Expanding Public Image," Journalism Quarterly 36 (Summer 1959): 277.

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looking at the front page, is that the fundamental concern

of this study is not the amount of White House personal

coverage but whether or not personal coverage has reduced

the amount of issues coverage. It is readily acknowledged

that today's newspapers contain more personal coverage than

did the newspapers of eighty-five years ago. Today's

newspapers, with better-trained staffs, advanced

technology, more advertising revenue, and far larger

budgets, provide more personal coverage of the president,

just as they provide more international coverage, more

congressional coverage, and more political coverage. But

the real issue is whether that expansion of personal

coverage has resulted in a decrease in coverage of vital

issues. The very heart of the concern is whether expanded

personal coverage has been at the expense of issues

coverage. Those questions can be answered only by

comparing the front pages of American newspapers today with

those in the past. For it is the front page that is most

visible on news stands and in news boxes and that remains

the best gauge of what issues are receiving the most news

media attention.

Favorable vs. Unfavorable News

When considering the topic of personal news coverage,

a logical question that arises is whether the tone of a

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specific personal news story is favorable or unfavorable.

This study will not, however, explore this distinction in

great detail.

The major reason for establishing this parameter is

that determining the favorable-unfavorable tone of news

stories is extremely difficult because of the subjective

nature of such a process. The content analysis

methodology that has been developed to assess the tone of

news coverage is so complex and so exacting that such

assessment must be the primary focus of a research study,

not a secondary or tangential product. A typical content

analysis study of this nature, "Images of the White House

in the Media" by Martha Joynt Kumar and Michael Baruch

Grossman, required two persons to read and to classify

8,742 White House news storiesContent analysis

techniques include determining the part of speech of words

in a story and then comparing the frequency of the various

parts of speech, such as the number of adjectives and

adverbs. In addition, methodology requires assessing

whether a particular adjective carries a positive or a

negative impact. Such detailed content analysis of

personal news coverage is beyond the scope of the current

Michael Baruch Grossman and Martha Joynt Kumar, Portravinq the President; The White House and the News Media (Baltimore; Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 85.

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study.

In addition, one conclusion of the Kumar-Grossinan

study was that personal stories from the White House are

almost invariably positive. The researchers divided

stories into nine categories, including one labeled

"Personal: personal, philosophy, president with family,

family members, health." They found a higher concentration

of positive stories in this category than in any of the

other eight. "The stories resulting from these personal 55 glimpses invariably are friendly to the president,"

Kumar and Grossman said.

The researcher undertaking the current study has

adopted the belief, widely held among politicians, that it

is beneficial for a candidate or a politician to have his

or her name in the public eye as often as possible. It

enhances a politician's status with voters to have his or

her name in the newspaper as often as possible. A

candidate must achieve name recognition, and a politician

has no greater fear than that voters might forget who he or

she is. In the words of Kumar and Grossman:

Presidents have to communicate their messages all the time. They must use the publicity resources of their office to make certain that the messages get through the

55ibid., 9 7.

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proper channels of news. If they hide from this role, their administration will have major problems. It is the whole process by which leadership is glued together. 56

S^ibid., 109.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Methodology

Methodology used in this study was designed to

compare presidential news coverage during the

administrations of all fifteen of the twentieth century's

presidents to determine if personal news accounted for

larger portions of presidential news coverage for recent

presidents than for earlier presidents.

This study was conducted in eight phases: First,

primary and secondary goals of the study were defined.

Second, relevant literature about the presidency and

press-president relations was examined and summarized.

Third, appropriate methodology for the study was

developed. Fourth, presidential news stories were

identified, measured, and recorded. Fifth, personal news

stories were classified into eight categories. Sixth, for

each president, personal coverage was compared to total

news coverage to determine what percentage of each

president's total news coverage was devoted to personal

coverage. Seventh, these percentages were analyzed to

determine if personal news coverage has increased

chronologically during the twentieth century or if

personal news coverage has developed in other discernible

47

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patterns. Eighth, data were analyzed and interpreted in

an attempt to fulfill the purposes of the study.

The description of the methodology employed to

complete this study is divided into three sections. The

first section. Technical Procedures, discusses technical

procedures followed in the collection of data. The second

section. Time Period Examined, discusses the time period

examined and why that time period was chosen. The third

section, Newspapers Examined, discusses the four

newspapers examined and why those newspapers where chosen.

Technical Procedures

Technical methodology used in this study was

originated by Elmer E. Cornwell, Jr., a political science

professor at Brown University, for a 1959 Journalism

Quarterly study that established that presidential news

has increased more rapidly than congressional news or

national government news as a w h o l e . 57 Journalism Quarterly

is the premier journal of journalism research. Alan P.

Balutis, a political science professor at the State

University of New York at Buffalo, repeated the

methodology in a 1976 Journalism Quarterly study that

found that presidential coverage had continued to increase

57cornwell, 275-283.

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more rapidly than congressional coverage.58 The author of

the current study also used the Cornwell-Balutis

methodology in a 1985 Journalism Quarterly study that

found that robust, outgoing presidents attract more news

coverage than quiet, reserved presidents.59

One major difference between Cornwell-Balutis

methodology and the current study's methodology is the

expansion of the number of newspapers studied and,

consequently, the addition of a national perspective.

Cornwell examined The New York Times and the Providence

J o u r n a l Balutis examined the Times and the Buffalo

Evening News. The current study examines the Times. the

Los Angeles Times, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. and the

Atlanta Constitution. Another methodological expansion

involves the time period studied. Cornwell examined

seventy years of coverage; Balutis examined sixteen

years. The current study examines more than eighty years

of coverage. The current study also contains considerably

more historiographical material and analytical narrative.

Technical procedures used in this study, like those

SSAlan P. Balutis, "Congress, the President and the Press," Journalism Quarterly 53 (Autumn 1976); 509-515.

59Rodger Streitmatter, "The Impact of Presidential Personality on News Coverage in Major Newspapers," Journalism Quarterly 62 (Spring 1985): 66-73.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50

used by Cornwell and Balutis, involve identifying and

measuring front-page news stories that appeared during a

two-year sample period within each presidential

administration. For each newspaper, the first Sunday

through Saturday of January, March, May, July, September,

and November were scanned.

The scanning located headlines containing the word

"president," "presidency," "White House," or the

president's name. Headlines were used as an identifying

factor for this study, as they were for both the Cornwell

and Balutis studies, because headlines summarize the

subject and content of newspaper articles. "The purpose

of a headline, as every newspaper reader knows, is to

summarize the news story above which it a p p e a r s , " ^ 0

according to the first sentence in the "Headlines" chapter

of Editing the News, a standard editing textbook. In

addition to summarizing a story, a headline also helps the

reader sift through the array of newspaper stories to

select the stories he or she chooses to read in full. The

headline "helps readers index the contents of the page,"^^

G^Roy H. Copperud and Roy Paul Nelson, Editing the News (Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown Company Publishers, 1983), 23.

51-Floyd K. Baskette and Jack Z. Sissors, The Art of Editing (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1977), 57.

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according to The Art of Editing, another standard editing

textbook.

Procedures originated by Cornwell and Balutis also

were followed in the selection of the years examined.

Cornwell and Balutis chose "the least eventful years" of

each presidency, reducing the impact of momentous events,

such as World War II, that could skew the results. This

study focuses on the second and third years of each

president's first term. The first year was avoided

because that year often is a "honeymoon" period in which

journalists tend to be unusually positive about the new

president; the fourth year was avoided because that year

immediately precedes a presidential election, during which

the president may be beginning a re-election campaign.

After an article was identified as qualifying as

presidential news coverage, seven pieces of information

were recorded: (1 .) newspaper in which the article

appeared, (2.) date the article appeared, (3.) exact

wording of the headline with the article, (4.) length of

the article (in column inches), (5.) length of the

headline (in column inches), (6 .) length of the

continuation of the article inside the newspaper (in

column inches), and (7.) classification of the article as

dealing with an international issue, domestic issue.

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political issue, or personal subject. The only stories

that did not fit into any of the four classifications were

those that dealt with the president's health or the

president's security. Because the health and safety of

the leader of the Free World certainly is vital news,

neither type of story was considered personal news.

A technical complication arose because of the

changes in newspaper layout and design that have occurred.

During the twentieth century, newspaper pages have ranged

in width from eight columns to five columns. To achieve

consistency, all figures were converted to a standard

eight-column page layout.

Personal news stories later were categorized into

one of eight types of personal coverage. This

categorization was used in analyzing the personal coverage

of each president. The types of personal stories were:

A. Vacations/Personal Travel

B. Immediate Family/Homelife Activities (mainly activities of the first lady and first children)

C. Social Life (such as attending theater and cultural presentations)

D. Interaction with "Little People" (ordinary citizens)

E. Interaction with Celebrities (widely recognized movie stars, royalty, sports figures)

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F. Personal Idiosyncrasies (glimpses into the president's personality or character through anecdotes such as how many hours a day the president works)

G. Ceremonial Events (such as the president's participation in dedications of libraries and historic sites)

H. Extended Family (activities of the president's parents, brothers and sisters)

Data were collected at the Newspapers and Current

Periodicals Section of the James Madison Building of the

Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The front pages

of 5,040 newspapers were examined. Of the 3,099

presidential news stories that were identified and

measured, 676 were classified as personal news stories.

Total coverage included in the study measured 73,841

column inches; personal news coverage measured 9,521

column inches. When the seven pieces of information about

each story and the categorization of each personal story

were added together, they amounted to the 26,667

individual pieces of information on which this study is

based.

Time Period Examined

The beginning point of this study has more

significance than merely coinciding with the start of a

new century. The turn of the century was a time of

radical change for American journalism. For this was the

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era when newspapers, like many American enterprises, began

to adopt a regional or national scope and to become big

businesses. In 1835, James Gordon Bennett founded the New

York Herald in a basement room on Wall Street with $500 in

cash and a desk created by a plank laid across two

barrels. By the turn of the century, such times were

gone. In the mid-1890s, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World

employed 1,300 full-time staff members and operated on an

annual budget of $2 million. In 1901, Editor and

Publisher, the trade journal for the newspaper industry,

estimated anyone entering the New York news market should

expect to invest a minimum of $1 million. The return on

investment was equally impressive. In the early 1890s,

James Gordon Bennet Jr. netted annual profits of $1

million.G2

Newspapers became big businesses primarily because

of soaring advertising revenue, which meant the business

side of newspapers wanted to attract more and bigger

advertisers. At the same time, the newspaper market was

expanding, offering advertisers the opportunity to choose

the paper with the largest readership. Newspaper business

offices, of course, pushed for higher circulations to

attract more advertisers and higher profits.

G2juergens, 5.

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Because of economics, therefore, journalism of the

early twentieth century placed more emphasis on "human

interest" stories. Surges in immigration, urbanization,

and population meant that the number of Americans reading

newspapers in 1880 had doubled by 1900 and tripled by

1910. A large mass of poorly educated and unsophisticated

readers, mostly in the cities, were more interested in

personal details about figures in the news than in dry

matters of statecraft. The human element entered all

types of coverage because circulation-hungry newspapers

responded to the desires of their readers.

This trend toward human interest stories manifested

itself dramatically in coverage of the country's

number-one newsmaker— the president of the United States.

"Scandal and gossip about chief executives had always been

grist for the press," George Juergens wrote in his

discussion of journalism changes during the Progressive

Era, "but what can only be described as a kind of domestic

chatter became a staple of White House reporting.

Intense coverage of Grover Cleveland's 1886 marriage

presaged the trend. The 49-year-old bachelor president's

marriage to his 2 1 -year-old ward demonstrated that

presidential privacy was an anachronism. Newspapers

G3lbid., 7.

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devoted huge amounts of space to the ceremony and the

details surrounding it. The New York Times, for example,

splashed the ceremony across five columns of its front

page. Cleveland closed the White House doors for the June

wedding, but two clever correspondents noticed workmen

building a temporary awning at the rear of the White

House. So when the bridal couple, partially concealed by

the awning, slipped out the back, the two newsmen followed

them to their secret honeymoon retreat. When the

Clevelands awoke the next morning, their view of the

mountains of Western Maryland was marred by a cluster of

six reporters squatting in the shrubbery.

During the next five days of round-the-clock

surveillance, reporters filed 400,000 words. Whenever the

couple ventured out of doors, reporters documented what

they wore, how often they smiled, how many times they

touched and what scraps of conversation could be heard.

Reporters also examined the meals sent from a nearby

hotel— to ensure that history would know what the

honeymooners ate. And, of course, each night the

reporters noted the exact moment the cottage lights were

4. put out.64

Coverage of the Cleveland wedding and honeymoon

G^ibid.

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prompted some of the earliest criticism of press pursuit

of personal news. "At no time has this subject of

newspaper conduct been more pressing than it is n o w , "65

Joseph Bishop wrote in the August, 1886, issue of Forum

magazine.

The extraordinary course of not merely a few but of nearly all the prominent journals of the country, before and after the President's marriage, has served one good purpose. It has called public attention to the intolerable lengths to which the modern system of press espionage has been c a r r i e d . 66

Bishop, after citing other examples of the press

invading the privacy of individuals, then created an

eloquent and impassioned denunciation of overemphasis on

personal news:

If . . . journalism is a profession in which it is allowable to do anything that pays, . . . the profession becomes the lowest of human callings— lower than brothel-keeping or liquor-selling, for these make no pretense to respectability, while the journalist pretends to be a public guide and teacher; and the spectacle which he presents, peddling out moral precepts with one hand and scandal, vulgar gossip, and family secrets with the other, is most revolting.67

The fundamental changes in American newspapers

6 5 Joseph B. Bishop, "Newspaper Espionage," Forum. August 1886, 529.

66 Ibid.

6 7 i b i d . , 535.

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evidenced by the new emphasis on human interest offered

challenges and opportunities to early twentieth century

presidents. One key to successful leadership was a

president's ability to make the characteristics of modern

journalism work for him. For the publicity-savvy

president of the twentieth century, defining news as a

daily chronicle of official activity was too narrow. With

effort and creativity, a president could generate enough

news to ensure continued domination of the front page.

And the more he monopolized public attention, the more he

established his credentials as national leader. An

effective president had to recognize that most early

twentieth century readers would not look beyond the front

page. If a president could dominate Page One, he did not

have to be overly concerned about what the editorial page

said about him. By 1900, the press needed the president

and the president needed the press— a symbiotic

relationship that continues today.

Newspapers Examined

The four newspapers examined in this study were

chosen for several reasons. First, they are four of the

best daily newspapers in the United States. Second, they

represent a geographical spread across the United States.

Third, all four newspapers were published throughout the

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time period being studied. And fourth, the four

newspapers represent different political leanings.

To evaluate the quality of leading daily newspapers,

the current study relied upon the 1968 book. The Elite

Press; Great Newspapers of the World. Author John Merrill

is a professor at the University of Missouri Journalism

School. He based his listing of the world's best 100

newspapers on five broad categories; (1 .) independence,

financial stability, integrity, social concern, writing,

and editing; (2 .) strong opinion and interpretive emphasis,

world consciousness, non-sensationalism in articles, and

m.ake-up; (3.) emphasis on politics, international relations,

economics, social welfare, cultural endeavors, education,

and science; (4.) concern with getting, developing, and

keeping a large, intelligent, well-educated, articulate,

and technically proficient staff; and (5.) determination to

serve and to help expand a well-educated, intellectual

readership and to influence opinion leaders.

Merrill included twenty-two American newspapers in

his list. The New York Times stood at the top, the only

American newspaper classified among the world's ten

primary elite newspapers. The St. Louis Post-Disnatch was

at the second level, one of three American newspapers

classified among the world's twenty secondary elite

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newspapers. The Los Angeles Times was at the third level,

one of five American newspapers classified among the

world's thirty tertiary elite newspapers. The Atlanta

Constitution was at the fourth level, one of thirteen

American newspapers classified among the world's forty

near-elite.

The current study's selection of newspapers that

provide a geographical spread across the United States is

significant. The American press often has been criticized

as being dominated by a handful of publications located in

the Northeast and, therefore, not representing the entire

country. Because of this criticism, it was considered

essential that the newspapers chosen for this study

represent the various sections of the country.

The New York Times consistently is regarded as the

best newspaper in the United States. Often viewed as the

country's paper of record, the Times must be included in

any study based on twentieth century news coverage. The

Post-Dispatch was included in the current study because it

was the top Midwestern newspaper in Merrill's ranking.

For the same reason, the Los Angeles Times was included

because it was the top Western newspaper on Merrill's

6 8 john Merrill, The Elite Press; Great Newspapers of the World (New York: Pitman Publishing Co., 1968), 30-31, 42-45.

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list. The most difficult selection was a newspaper to

represent the South. Scholars of American history

generally believe that the South represents a unique

region within the United States for various economic and

cultural reasons. The fact that few Southern newspapers

have been recognized as national leaders, however, caused

the researcher to dip into the lowest of Merrill's four

categories to select the Constitution. At the same time,

however, a ranking among the country's top thirteen

newspapers is no cause for shame. Even if the

Constitution ranks as thirteenth among the country's 1,400

daily newspapers, that ranking places the Constitution

above 99.1 percent of its competitors.

With regard to the newspapers being published during

the time period examined, all four newspapers were well

established by 1902, being founded at least twenty years

before that date. The New York Times was founded in 1851,

the Constitution in 1868, the Post-Dispatch in 1878, and

the Los Angeles Times in 1881.

The four newspapers represent a range of political

leanings. Such a range is important in a study that

compares the amount of newspaper coverage of presidents

who represent both political parties. During the period

studied, the United States has conducted twenty-two

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presidential elections. All four newspapers did not

endorse the same candidate in a single one of those

elections. Throughout much of its history, the Los

Angeles Times has been recognized as one of the country's

staunchest Republican newspapers. During the period

examined, the Times endorsed nineteen Republicans, while

not endorsing a single Democrat. The Atlanta

Constitution. on the other hand, is recognized as being a

staunchly Democratic newspaper. During the period

examined, the Constitution endorsed twenty-one Democrats,

while not endorsing a single Republican. The New York

Times and St. Louis Post-Disnatch are recognized as

politically independent newspapers. The Times endorsed

fourteen Democrats and five Republicans, while endorsing

no one three times; the Post-Disptach endorsed nineteen

Democrats and three Republicans. (See Table 1)

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Table 1.— Presidential Endorsements of Newspapers Studied

New York Los Angeles St. Louis Atlanta

1900 McKinley(R) McKinley(R) Bryan(D) Bryan(D)

1904 Parker(D) Roosevelt(R) Parker(D) Parker(D)

1908 Bryan(D) Taft(R) Bryan(D) Bryan(D)

1912 Wilson(D) Taft(R) Wilson(D) Wilson(D)

1916 Wilson(D) Hughes(R) Wilson(D) Wilson(D)

1920 Cox(D) Harding(R) Cox(D) Cox(D)

1924 Davis(D) Coolidge(R) Davis(D) Davis(D)

1928 no one Hoover(R) Smith(D) Smith(D)

1932 Roosevelt(D) Hoover(R) Roosevelt(D) Roosevelt(D)

1936 no one Landon(R) Landon(R) Roosevelt(D)

1940 Willkie(R) Willkie(R) Roosevelt(D) Roosevelt(D)

1944 no one Dewey(R) Roosevelt(D) Roosevelt(D)

1948 Dewey (R) Dewey(R) Dewey(R) no one

1952 Eisenhower(R) Eisenhower(R) Stevenson(D) Stevenson(D)

1956 Eisenhower(R) Eisenhower(R) Stevenson(D) Stevenson(D)

1960 Kennedy(D) Nixon(R) Kennedy(D) Kennedy(D)

1964 Johnson(D) Goldwater(R) Johnson(D) Johnson(D)

1968 Humphrey(D) Nixon(R) Humphrey(D) Humphrey(D)

1972 McGovern(D) Nixon(R) Nixon (R) McGovern(D)

1976 Carter(D) no one Carter(D) Carter(D)

1980 Carter(D) no one Carter(D) Carter(D)

1984 Mondale(D) no one Mondale(D) Mondale(D)

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DATA ANALYSIS

The first step in analyzing the quantitative data

collected in this study is to focus on two tables that

provide comprehensive summaries of the data. These two

tables summarize the personal news coverage of the fifteen

presidents who have served during this century. Table 2

lists the presidents in chronological order, indicating

each man's general news coverage, personal coverage, the

percentage of his general coverage devoted to personal

coverage, and his rank among this century's presidents with

regard to the size of his personal coverage "chunk." Table

3 provides the same information but lists the presidents

according to the percentage of personal coverage they

received, from the highest percentage to the lowest

percentage.

64

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Table 2.— Presidents Listed Chronologically with Percent of Personal Coverage

general personal personal rank coverage coverage as share (in column inches) of general

T. Roosevelt 2,197 1 , 1 1 0 51% 1 st

Taft 2,811 300 1 1 % 1 0 th**

Wilson 3,045 731 24% 2 nd

Harding 3,387 733 2 2 % 3rd

Coolidge 3,047 447 15% 5th

Hoover 3,587 279 8 % 13th

F . Roosevelt 4,694 728 16% 4 th

Truman 5,114 632 1 2 % 7th*

Eisenhower 5,669 400 7% 14th

Kennedy 8,267 1,160 14% 6 th

Johnson 5,333 646 1 2 % 8 th*

Nixon 6,043 299 5% 15th

Ford 6,806 588 9% 1 2 th

Carter 8,319 859 1 0 % 1 1 th

Reagan 5,522 607 1 1 % 9th**

* Although Truman and Johnson's personal coverage figures both rounded off to 12 percent, Truman's figure (12.36) was slightly higher than Johnson's (12.11).

** Although Taft and Reagan's personal coverage figures both rounded off to 11 percent, Reagan's figure (10.99) was slightly higher than Taft's (10.67).

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Table 3.— Presidents Ranked by Percent of Personal Coverage

general personal personal rank coverage coverage as share (in column inches) of general

T. Roosevelt 2,197 1 , 1 1 0 51% 1 st

Wilson 3,045 731 24% 2 nd

Harding 3,387 733 2 2 % 3rd

F. Roosevelt 4,694 728 16% 4 th

Coolidge 3,047 447 15% 5th

Kennedy 8,267 1,160 14% 6 th

Truman 5,114 632 1 2 % 7th*

Johnson 5,333 646 1 2 % 8 th*

Reagan 5,522 607 1 1 % 9th**

Taft 2,811 300 1 1 % 1 0 th**

Carter 8,319 859 1 0 % 1 1 th

Ford 6,806 588 9% 1 2 th

Hoover 3,587 279 8 % 13th

Eisenhower 5,669 400 7% 14th

Nixon 6,043 299 5% 15 th

* Although Truman and Johnson's personal coverage figures both rounded off to 12 percent, Truman's figure (12.35) was slightly higher than Johnson's (12.11).

**Although Taft and Reagan's personal coverage figures both rounded off to 11 percent, Reagan's figure (10.99) was slightly higher than Taft's (10.67).

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This quantitative study was designed to answer four

fundamental questions about personal news from the White

House during the twentieth century. With the data that

have been collected, all four of those questions now can be

answered.

1. Has the percentage of presidential news coverage

devoted to personal news increased sharply in recent years?

The answer to this question is a simple, yet

resounding: No. The data leave no room for doubt.

Today's newspapers have not increased their coverage of the

personal side of recent presidents. Indeed, the data

provide ample evidence of the reverse. There was far less

coverage of the president's personality and personal life

in 1983 than there was in 1902.

The most dramatic illustration of this reality is the

contrast between the percentage of personal news received

by the incumbent president and the percentage received by

this century's first president. Reagan's personal coverage

amounted to 11 percent of his general coverage; Teddy

Roosevelt's personal coverage amounted to 51 percent.

Reagan's percentage figure was barely one-fifth of Teddy

Roosevelt's. This difference also is reflected in the two

presidents' rankings in terms of personal coverage. Reagan

ranked ninth among the fifteen presidents ; Teddy Roosevelt

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ranked first.

This contrast exists despite the steady increase in

White House news coverage this century. Reagan received

two and a half times as much general coverage as Roosevelt

(5,522 column inches compared to 2,197), yet Roosevelt

garnered 83 percent more personal coverage (1,110 column

inches compared to 607).

The same result is evident for other recent

presidents. For the five most recent chief executives

(Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, and Johnson), personal

coverage averaged 9.4 percent of total coverage; for the

first five presidents of this century (Roosevelt, Taft,

Wilson, Harding, and Coolidge), personal coverage averaged

24.6 percent of total coverage. Recent presidents,

therefore, have received less than half as much personal

coverage as early twentieth-century presidents.

Averaging the rankings of recent presidents provides

the same result. The five most recent presidents ranked

ninth, eleventh, twelfth, fifteenth, and eighteenth, for an

average of eleventh; the five earliest ranked first, tenth,

second, third, and fifth, for an average of fourth.

Comparing percentage figures and rankings of the most

recent and the earliest presidents of this century answers

the first and most fundamental question of this study. For

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that comparison clearly identifies a trend toward decreased

personal news from the White House.

New York Times Coverage

The trend toward less personal coverage of recent

presidents revealed by the data is such a departure from

the common perception regarding personal coverage that the

researcher sought a means by which to verify the findings.

This means involved The New York Times. The Times is so

widely regarded as the best newspaper in the country that

an examination of coverage in that one newspaper could

stand alone as a substantive piece of research. So, to

double check the findings, the researcher focused on how

the fifteen presidents lined up according to the percentage

of their Times coverage that was devoted to personal news.

Table 4 summarizes these data.

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Table 4.— New York Times Coverage

general personal personal rank coverage coverage as share (in column inches) of general

T . Roosevelt 764 419 55% 1 st

Wilson 1,031 244 24% 2 nd

F. Roosevelt 1,883 368 2 0 % 3rd

Kennedy 2,890 473 16% 4 th

Harding 1,545 231 15% 5th

Coolidge 1,603 183 1 1 % 6 th

Truman 1,966 207 1 1 % 6th

Johnson 1,701 175 1 0 % 8 th

Carter 3,188 326 1 0 % 8 th

Reagan 2,153 189 9% 10 th

Hoover 1,240 95 8 % 1 1 th

Eisenhower 2,454 145 6 % 1 2 th Ford 2,750 178 6 % 1 2 th

Nixon 2,204 1 1 0 5% 14 th Taft 549 46 1 % 15th

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Results of the analysis of Times coverage were very

similar to results of the analysis of coverge of the four

newspapers combined. The top six leaders were identical,

although their rankings varied slightly. With Times

personal coverage, Teddy Roosevelt again received a higher

percentage figure than any other president (55 percent in

the Times. compared to 51 percent in the four newspapers

combined). Likewise, Wilson again received the second

largest amount (an identical 24 percent in the Times and in

the four newspapers combined). The other four leaders were

in slightly different order, with FDR and JFK receiving

higher personal coverage percentages and higher rankings.

According to the Times data, Roosevelt was third with 20

percent, Kennedy fourth with 16, Harding fifth with 15, and

Coolidge sixth with 11.

Names at the bottom of the Times list also were the

same as those found when the four newspapers' coverage was

combined: Nixon, Eisenhower, Ford, and Hoover. The only

addition was Taft, who finished ninth in the data for the

four newspapers combined and fifteenth with Times coverage

alone.

In short, examination of personal coverage in the

Times verified the findings from the study of the four

newspapers' combined coverage.

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Regression Analysis

Advanced computer technology offers a sophisticated

method by which a researcher can analyze quantitative data.

Regression programming produces figures indicating the

figures each president "should have been expected" to

receive based on the aggregate data for all fifteen

presidents. In other words, regression analysis enables

the researcher to take the large number of individual

pieces of information and see how they form an overall

pattern or trend.

Figures summarized in Table 5, for example, were

created by inserting two pieces of information for each

president into a regression analysis formula. Those pieces

of information were (1 .) the years that were examined for

the president (for example, 1902-1903 for Teddy Roosevelt)

and (2 .) the percent of the president's total general

coverage that was devoted to personal news (for example, 51

percent for Teddy Roosevelt). Regression analysis

programming determined a regression coefficient of -.26.

Multiplying the regression coefficient by the years of

coverage for a particular president then produced the

figures listed in the first column: the percentage of

personal coverage the president "should have been expected"

to receive, according to the aggregate data for all fifteen

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73

presidents. This "expected" percentage figure (listed in

the middle column) then could be compared to the percentage

figure the president actually received. Then the variation

between the "expected" and actual figures could be compared

(contained in the last column).

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Table 5.— Percentage of General News Devoted to Personal News

"expected" actual variation

T. Roosevelt 30% 51% (actual coverage 2 1 % higher than "expected")

Taft 28% 11% ("expected" coverage 17% higher than actual)

Wilson 27% 24% ("expected" coverage 3% higher than actual)

Harding 25% 22% ("expected" coverage 3% higher than actual)

Coolidge 24% 15% ("expected" coverage 9% higher than actual)

Hoover 23% 8% ("expected" coverage 15% higher than actual)

F. Roosevelt 22% 16% ("expected" coverage 6 % higher than actual)

Truman 19% 12% ("expected" coverage 7% higher than actual)

Eisenhower 17% ("expected" coverage 1 0 % higher than actual)

Kennedy 15% 14? ("expected" coverage 1 % higher than actual)

Johnson 14% 12? ("expected" coverage 2 % higher than actual)

Nixon 13% 5% ("expected" coverage 8 % higher than actual)

Ford 11% 9% ("expected" coverage 2 % higher than actual)

Carter 11% 10% ("expected" coverage 1 % higher than actual)

Reagan 10% 11% (actual coverage 1% higher than "expected")

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But the most significant product of this regression

analysis— and perhaps the most significant product of the

entire study— is contained in Figure 1, which provides a

visual depiction of these regression analysis results.

Through mathematical calculation, a time line has been

created. This time line indicates the rate at which

personal news from the White House has decreased during the

twentieth century. This single line clearly and

dramatically illustrates the trend toward personal news

coverage providing a diminishing percentage of total White

House news coverage.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76

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After a time line such as the one in Figure 1 has been

created, a researcher also can make observations based on

where individual presidents' actual percentage figures are

plotted in relation to the time line. When a president's

actual figure is above the time line, he received a larger

percentage of personal coverage than expected for a

president serving when he did; when a president's actual

figure is below the time line, he received a smaller

percentage of personal coverage than expected.

The most noteworthy figure is that of Teddy

Roosevelt. His 51 percent figure is 21 percentage points

higher than expected, even though regression analysis shows

that he was expected to receive a higher percentage figure

than any other president. The position of Roosevelt's

figure far above the time line distinguishes him, the first

president of this century, as receiving more personal news

coverage than any of the presidents who have followed him.

Because Roosevelt's personal coverage is extremely

high compared to the coverage of other twentieth-century

presidents, the researcher also examined the pattern of

personal coverage percentages that would exist if

Roosevelt's unusually large percentage were extracted. The

results are shown in Table 6 and Figure 2.

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Table 6 .— Percentage of General News Devoted to Personal News (for Presidents Other Than Teddy Roosevelt)

"expected" actual variation

Taft 25% 11% ("expected" coverage 14% higher than actual)

Wilson 24% 24% (actual coverage equal to "expected")

Harding 23% 22% ("expected" coverage 1 % higher than actual)

Coolidge 23% 15% ("expected" coverage 8 % higher than actual)

Hoover 22% ("expected" coverage 14% higher than actual)

F . Roosevelt 22% 16% ("expected" coverage 6 % higher than actual)

Truman 20% 125 ("expected" coverage 8 % higher than actual)

Eisenhower 195 ("expected" coverage 1 2 % higher than actual)

Kennedy 18^ 14% ("expected" coverage 4 % higher than actual)

Johnson 185 12% ("expected" coverage 6 % higher than actual)

Nixon 18^ 5% ("expected" coverage 13% higher than actual)

Ford 17% ("expected" coverage 8 % higher than actual)

Carter 175 10% ("expected" coverage 7 % higher than actual)

Reagan 164 114 (actual coverage 5% higher than "expected")

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Reproijuceij with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80

The major observation from examining Table 6 and

Figure 2 is that Teddy Roosevelt received such a large

amount of personal coverage that he significantly

influenced the pattern of White House personal coverage

during the twentieth century. When Roosevelt's personal

coverage percentage is removed from consideration, as it

was to create Figure 2, the time line is "flattened"

considerably. In mathematical terms, the regression

coefficient for percentage of personal coverage for

twentieth century presidents other than Roosevelt was -.12,

compared to a regression coefficeint of -.26 when the

percentages of all fifteen presidents were included.

When the Roosevelt figure is not included, the only

personal coverage percentage figure that appears on or

above the time line is that of Wilson, another president

who served very early in the century. Wilson's actual

coverage was equal to his expected coverage. The next

closest figure to the time line is that of Harding, another

early president. Harding's expected coverage was 1 percent

higher than his actual coverage.

Also illuminating is to examine which presidents'

actual personal coverage varied the most markedly from

their "expected" personal coverage. The presidents'

relative variations are summarized in Table 7.

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Table 7.— Ranking of Presidents by Variation between "Expected" and Actual Personal Coverage

"expected" actual variation

T . Roosevelt 30% 51% (actual coverage 2 1 % higher than "expected")

Reagan 10% 11% (actual coverage 1 % higher than "expected")

Kennedy 15% 14% ("expected" coverage 1 % higher than actual)

Carter 11% 10% ("expected" coverage 1 % higher than actual)

Johnson 14° 124 ("expected" coverage 2 % higher than actual)

Ford 11% ("expected" coverage 2 % higher than actual)

Wilson 27i 244 ("expected" coverage 3% higher than actual)

Harding 25Î 224 ("expected" coverage 3% higher than actual)

F, Roosevelt 224 164 ("expected" coverage 6 % higher than actual)

Truman 19% 12% ("expected" coverage 7% higher than actual)

Nixon 134 ("expected" coverage 8 % higher than actual)

Coolidge 244 15% ("expected" coverage 9% higher than actual)

Eisenhower 17% ("expected" coverage 1 0 % higher than actual)

Hoover 23% ("expected" cove age 15% higher than actual)

Taft 284 114 ("expected" coverage 17% higher than actual)

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The most obvious observation regarding the material

in Table 7 is that this summary again emphasizes the size

of Teddy Roosevelt's personal coverage. His actual

personal coverage exceeds his "expected" personal coverage

by an amount far in excess of that of any other president.

This observation again emphasizes the huge amount of

personal coverage received by presidents who served early

in the twentieth century.

Another important observation is that, despite a

distinct trend toward a decrease in the precentage of

general news coverage from the White House being devoted to

personal news stories, the time period in which a president

served definitely is not the only factor that determines

the number of personal news stories written about him.

Obviously, factors other than chronology influence the

amount of personal coverage a president receives.

The most striking evidence supporting this

observation occurs with the variation between the amount of

personal coverage William Howard Taft was "expected" to

receive (according to regression analysis) and the amount

he actually received. The 17 percent difference between

Taft's expected coverage and actual coverage is larger than

that of any other president. By contrast, the personal

coverage received by other men serving in the same era as

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Taft was either higher than expected or about as expected

(21 percent higher for Roosevelt, a mere 3 percent lower

for Wilson). Taft clearly was an exception to the general

rule that the personal coverage of early twentieth century

presidents accounted for large shares of their total news

coverage.

Herbert Hoover's figure provides more evidence that

factors other than chronology influence personal coverage.

Hoover's expected percentage is fifteen points higher than

his actual percentage. This difference is larger than any

except Roosevelt's and Taft's and significantly larger than

that of any of the other dozen presidents.

To a lesser degree, the Reagan figure also supports

this observation. Reagan being the only president besides

Teddy Roosevelt to receive a higher percentage of personal

coverage than expected suggests that Reagan's coverage may

be influenced by some of the same factors affecting the

coverage of Taft and Hoover— except that the factors work

to give Reagan more personal coverage than expected rather

than less. (The difference between Reagan's expected and

actual figures, however, was not extreme. Reagan's

difference was only two percentage points larger than

Kennedy's and Carter's, three points larger than Johnson's

and Ford's.)

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General and Personal Coverage Trends

Regression analysis procedures also were used to

identify trends in the amount of general and personal news

coverage received by twentieth century presidents. These

procedures produced regression coefficients of 63 for

general news coverage and - . 0 2 for personal news coverage.

Results of the procedures are summarized in Tables 8 and 9 ;

graphic depiction of these results are provided in Figures

3 and 4.

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Table 8.— Regression Analysis Data for General News Coverage

years expected actual higher lower studied general general than than coverage coverage expected expected

T. Roosevelt 1902-3 2,173 2,197 1 %

Taft 1910-1 2,676 2,811 5%

Wilson 1914-5 2,928 3,045 4%

Harding 1922-3 3,431 3,387 1 %

Coolidge 1925-6 3,620 3,047 2 %

Hoover 1930-1 3,934 3,587 9%

F. Roosevelt 1934-5 4,186 4,694 1 2 %

Truman 1946-7 4,941 5,114 4%

Eisenhower 1954-5 5,444 5,669 4%

Kennedy 1962-3 5,947 8,267 39%

J ohnson 1966-7 6,199 5,333 14%

Nixon 1970-1 6,450 6,043 6 %

Ford 1975-6 6,165 6,806 less than 1 %

Carter 1978-9 6,954 8,319 2 0 %

Reagan 1982-3 7,205 5,522 23%

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87

Table 9.— Regression Analysis Data for Personal News Coverage

years expected actual higher lower studied general general than than coverage coverage expected expected

T. Roosevelt 1902-3 691 1 , 1 1 0 61%

Taft 1910-1 689 300 56%

Wilson 1914-5 6 8 8 731 6 %

Harding 1922-3 687 733 7%

Coolidge 1925-6 6 8 6 447 35%

Hoover 1930-1 685 279 59%

F. Roosevelt 1934-5 684 728 6 %

Truman 1946-7 682 632 7%

Eisenhower 1954-5 680 400 41%

Kennedy 1962-3 679 1,160 71%

Johnson 1966-7 678 646 5%

Nixon 1970-1 677 299 56%

Ford 1975-6 676 588 13%

Carter 1978-9 675 859 27%

Reagan 1982-3 675 607 1 0 %

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89

Table 8 and Figure 3 illustrate how rapidly general

news coverage from the White House has increased during the

last century. These findings are consistent with earlier

research on the topic. "Presidential news," Elmer E.

Cornwell, Jr., wrote in a 1959 Journalism Quarterly

article, "has increased markedly and more or less steadily

in this century." New York Times coverage of the president

almost tripled between 1901 and 1957, according to

Cornwell's research.69 in research published in Journalism

Quarterly in 1976, Alan P. Balutis showed that the trend

had continued. Presidential news in the Times increased

from 61.9 percent in the period 1958-1963 to 73.1 percent

in 1970-74, Balutis f o u n d . 70

Historians have attributed the rise in presidential

news coverage to the increased power of the president,

particularly vis-a-vis Congress. Journalism historians

also point out that major daily newspapers have increased

their coverage of Washington, B.C., in general as those

newspapers have become more national in scope.

Table 9 and Figure 4 illustrate that personal news

coverage from the White House has decreased during this

century.

69cornwell, 283.

70Balutis, 513.

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The most significant insight that can be gained from

these two tables and figures comes from comparing the two

figures. The slopes of the two time lines dramatically

illustrate that general news coverage and personal news

coverage from the White House have evolved very, very

differently during this century. Despite mushrooming

quantities of presidential news coverage, personal news

from the White House has decreased.

The data collected for this study also were used to

examine how presidential news other than personal news has

evolved during this century. This was accomplished by

subtracting personal news from total news for each

president. These residuals were used to create Table 10.

When that data were inserted into regression programming,

they created Figure 5.

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Table 10.— Regression Analysis Data for General News Coverage Other Than Personal

years expected actual higher lower studied general general than than coverage coverage expected expected

T. Roosevelt 1902-3 1,323 1,087 18%

Taft 1910-1 1,827 2,511 37%

Wilson 1914-5 2,079 2,314 1 1 %

Harding 1922-3 2,583 2,654 3%

Coolidge 1925-6 2,772 2,600 6 %

Hoover 1930-1 3,087 3,308 7%

F. Roosevelt 1934-5 3,339 3,966 19%

Truman 1946-7 4,095 4,482 9%

Eisenhower 1954-5 4,599 5,269 15%

Kennedy 1962-3 5,103 7,107 39%

J ohnson 1966-7 5,355 4,687 1 2 %

Nixon 1970-1 5,607 5,744 2 %

Ford 1975-6 5,922 6,218 5%

Carter 1978-9 6 , 1 1 1 7,460 2 2 %

Reagan 1982-3 6,363 4,915 23%

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93

The most interesting general observation from this

data is that the slope of the time line in Figure 5 is

identical to the slope of the time line in Figure 3. In

both cases, the regression coefficient is 63. In other

words, general news other than personal news has increased

at exactly the same rate as general news as a whole.

When examining the figures for individual presidents,

it is obvious that some presidents would have had very

little news coverage had it not been for their personal

coverage. The best example is Teddy Roosevelt. When

personal coverage was included in general coverage,

Roosevelt received slightly more coverage than expected of

a president serving when he did. (See Table 8 ) When

personal coverage was extracted from general coverage,

however, Roosevelt received 18 percent less general

coverage than expected. (See Table 10) One possible

explanation is that Roosevelt recognized the benefits of

personal coverage and developed ways to secure such

coverage.

For other presidents, extracting personal coverage

from general coverage caused their general coverage figure

to soar. For example, when personal coverage was included

in general coverage, Taft had only 5 percent more coverage

than expected. (See Table 8 ) But when personal coverage

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was extracted from general coverage, Taft received 37

percent more coverage than expected. (See Table 10) One

possible explanation is that Taft attached no value to

personal coverage and, therefore, did not attempt to secure

personal coverage.

For still other presidents, extracting personal

coverage had little or no effect on their figures. Reagan,

for example, had 23 percent less coverage than expected

both when general coverage included personal coverage (See

Table 8 ) and when it excluded personal coverage (See Table

10). Likewise, Kennedy had 39 percent more coverage than

expected in both cases.

In short, after studying the figures for individual

presidents contained in Table 10, no consistent pattern can

be discerned.

When comparing figures in Tables 8 , 9, and 10,

however, one observation is extremely noteworthy. The

three tables contain a total of forty-five figures

indicating the magnitude of the deviation between an

individual president's expected and actual

coverage— fifteen for general coverage, fifteen for

personal coverage, and fifteen for general coverage other

than personal coverage. Of all of these forty-five

figures, the six largest are contained in Table 9, which

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contains information on personal coverage. Kennedy and

Teddy Roosevelt received 71 and 61 percent more personal

coverage than expected. Hoover, Taft, Nixon, and

Eisenhower received 59, 56, 56, and 41 percent less

personal coverage than expected.

The regression analysis data show, therefore, that

individual presidents' personal coverage figures vary

significantly more than do their general news figures,

regardless of whether general news includes personal news

or does not include personal news. This observation

further emphasizes that, although there has been a definite

trend toward less personal coverage, factors other than

chronology strongly influence the amount of personal news

coverage a president receives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96

2. Which twentieth century presidents have received

the most personal coverage?

Personal stories accounted for a higher percentage of

total news coverage for Teddy Roosevelt, this century's

first president, than for any other twentieth century

president. (See Table 3) The 51 percent of Roosevelt's

total coverage that was devoted to his personality and

personal life more than doubles the comparable figure for

any president who has followed him.

Personal stories accounted for 24 percent of the

total news coverage of Woodrow Wilson, this century's third

president.

Personal stories accounted for 22 percent of the

total news coverage of Warren G. Harding, this century's

fourth president.

Personal stories accounted for 16 percent of the

total news coverage of Franklin Roosevelt, this century's

seventh president.

Personal stories accounted for 15 percent of the

total news coverage of Calvin Coolidge, this century's

fifth president.

Personal stories accounted for 14 percent of John

Kennedy's total news coverage.

Regression analysis data confirm that these men

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received unusually large quantities of personal news

coverage. Kennedy and Teddy Roosevelt received 71 and 61

percent, respectively, more personal coverage than expected

for men serving when they did. Likewise, Wilson, Harding,

and Franklin Roosevelt received somewhat more personal

coverage than expected. (See Table 8 and Figure 4)

3. Which twentieth century presidents have received

the least personal coverage?

Personal stories accounted for only 5 percent of

Richard Nixon's total news coverage. This figure is less

than one-tenth the figure for Teddy Roosevelt.

Personal stories accounted for only 7 percent of

Dwight Eisenhower's total news coverage. This figure is

less than one-seventh of Teddy Roosevelt's figure.

Personal stories accounted for 8 percent of Herbert

Hoover's total news coverage.

Personal stories accounted for 9 percent of Gerald

Ford's total news coverage.

Personal stories accounted for 10 percent of Jimmy

Carter's total news coverage.

Even when individual percentages of the five men are

added together— Nixon's 5 percent, Eisenhower's 7 percent,

Hoover's 8 percent, etc.— they amount to only 39 percent,

which still does not equal Roosevelt's 51 percent.

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Regression analysis data confirm that these five men

received small amounts of personal coverage. According to

the data, for example. Hoover garnered 59 percent less

personal coverage than expected of a president serving when

he did. (See Table 8 and Figure 4) Likewise, Nixon

garnered 56 percent less than expected, Eisenhower 41

percent less, and Ford 13 percent less. Of the five men,

only Carter garnered more personal coverage than expected,

and his 27 percent figure was offset by his receiving 20

percent more general news coverage than expected. (See

Table 7)

4. What factors have influenced the amount of

personal news coverage twentieth century presidents have

received?

Based on analysis of the men who have accumulated the

most and the least personal coverage, three factors

influence the magnitude of a president's personal news

coverage:

First, there is a definite relationship between when

a president serves and the share of his total news coverage

that is produced by personal stories. Despite the common

perception that personal coverage of presidents has

increased in recent years, the data show that the trend has

been toward less personal coverage from the White House.

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The five presidents who received the most personal

coverage generally served early in the century. Teddy

Roosevelt entered office eighty-seven years ago (1901);

Wilson, seventy-five years ago (1913); Harding, sixty-seven

years ago (1921); Franklin Roosevelt, fifty-five years ago

(1933) ; and Coolidge, sixty-five years ago (1923). The

"average" personal coverage leader, therefore, entered

office 69.8 years ago.

In contrast, the five presidents who received the

least personal coverage generally served in the recent

past. With the exception of Hoover, they all resided in

the White House within the last thirty years. Nixon became

president nineteen years ago (1969); Eisenhower,

thirty-five years ago (1953) ; Hoover, fifty-nine years ago

(1929); Ford, fourteen years ago (1974); and Carter, eleven

years ago (1977). The presidents who received the least

personal coverage entered the White House an average of

only 27.6 years ago.

In short, the earlier in the century a president

served, the more personal coverage he was likely to

receive. One explanation for the plethora of personal

coverage from the White House early in the twentieth

century is the fact that many presidents who served during

that period recognized the benefits they could derive

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through personal coverage. As a matter of fact, several of

those early presidents went out of their way to help

reporters catch glimpses of White House personalities and

personal activities.

At the turn of the century, immigration and

industrializaton attracted throngs of poorly educated

workers to the factories appearing in American cities.

These common laborers were far more interested in personal

details about figures in the news than in dry matters of

statecraft. The impact these readers had on American

journalism is most easily identified by the rise of the

sensationalistic tabloids beginning in 1919 and continuing

throughout the 1920s.

So it was during the early years of the twentieth

century that human interest stories began to play a

prominent role in American journalism. And the human

interest element manifested itself more dramatically in

coverage of the country's number-one newsmaker than in any

other type of news coverage.

In the new century, the president who succeeded at

molding public opinion was the man who personalized the

institution of the presidency. The definition of news as a

daily chronicle of official activity had become too narrow.

A politically astute president of the early twentieth

century knew that, by exposing details about his

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personality and personal life, he could generate enough

news to dominate the front page, to monopolize public

attention and to reconfirm his credentials as national

leader.

It is no coincidence that Teddy Roosevelt, the first

president to recognize the importance of news in affecting

public opinion, accumulated more personal news coverage

than any other president this century.

Second, presidents receive more personal coverage if

they possess newsworthy personalities and personal lives.

Each personal coverage leader's personal side was

unusually newsworthy, as defined by journalistic standards.

Their personal characteristics and slices from their

personal lives were so compelling that they propelled these

presidents into the human interest spotlight. The

personality and personal life of each man offered the raw

material that journalists could mold into front-page

stories.

Teddy Roosevelt, fifteen years younger than the

president he replaced, brought to the White House half a

dozen young children, a Phi Beta Kappa key, a fascinating

background as a "Rough Rider" in the Spanish-American War,

a huge dose of personal magnetism, and a flair for the

dramatic. Likewise, the American people of the early

twentieth century were attracted to Wilson because his

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intellect and idealism meshed with the sense of mission

that dominated the country. In the very different decade

of the 1920s, Harding and Coolidge appealed to the American

people because it was a time when people wanted to sit

back, relax, and enjoy the good life, a time that called

for relaxed, easy-going presidents who allowed government

to take a backseat to business activity. Readers of that

decade, therefore, wanted to read stories about how Harding

and Coolidge relaxed while on their frequent vacations.

With another change in direction, FDR's jaunty

confidence and refusal to accept limits gave hope to a

depressed nation during a time of economic and political

crisis. Handsome and youthful John Kennedy, his beautiful

and cultured wife, two young children, and the whole clan

of active and ambitious Kennedys transformed Washington

into Camelot.

The men who attracted the least amount of personal

coverage, on the other hand, possessed neither a compelling

personality nor an interesting personal life. None of the

five had a robust, outgoing personality. Nor did any of

the five men have a particularly newsworthy or interesting

personal life dominated by dynamic relatives or fascinating

special interests.

Nixon is the most secretive, enigmatic man ever to

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serve as president, and he built an impenetrable wall

around his private life. Eisenhower was an unpretentious

man who disliked making speeches or meeting with reporters,

and he certainly would have preferred spending his final

years on the golf course rather than in the White House.

Hoover was a shy, aloof engineer whose predeliction was to

work alone and quietly. Ford is a nice guy whose blandness

borders on dullness. Carter is a religious fundamentalist

whose "weirdo factor" lost its appeal almost immediately

after the votes were tallied.

Third, presidents receive more personal coverage if

they provide reporters with liberal access to them.

The more contact a president has with the press

corps, the more likely it is that reporters will write

stories about the president's personality and personal

life. This is true for two reasons. First, reporters who

have frequent contact with a president catch more glimpses

of the president that can be translated into personal news

items. Second, a president who spends a great deal of time

with reporters is likely to become more relaxed with them

and to show them his true personality and personal habits,

which provide the grist for personal items.

Teddy Roosevelt increased presidential access to an

unprecedented level. Most important was his creation of a

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press room near his own office; for the first time,

reporters were allowed space inside the White House gates.

Roosevelt also invented the "authoritative source," which

enabled him to chat candidly with reporters who could

attribute sensitive information to anonymous sources.

Wilson took this century's most significant step in

the evolution of press-president access by establishing the

presidential news conference to maintain regular contact

with reporters. For the first time, 100 reporters met with

the president simultaneously and on equal footing.

Harding, the only man to ascend to the presidency

after a career in the journalism business, provided the

press corps with more access than any other president.

During his election campaign, Harding introduced the

concept of press accommodations by building a three-room

house for reporters right next door to his home in Marion,

Ohio. While president, Harding continued to talk openly

and amiably with reporters. He even included reporters in

his poker games and late-night meetings at the White House,

lifting press-president interchange to a new level of

intimacy.

Coolidge established an open-door policy with

reporters and maintained that policy throughout his six

years in office. In particular, Coolidge surprised

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reporters by speaking with a degree of candor unexpected of

a man otherwise so reticent.

No other president has approached Franklin

Roosevelt's remarkable record of eighty-three press

conferences a year. FDR was both frank and entertaining

during the 998 sessions dotted with off-the-record asides

and repartee. Reporters joined FDR for Sunday night

suppers at the White House, and some journalists even wrote

speeches for him. Eleanor Roosevelt extended personal

coverage to the first lady for the first time in history by

holding press conferences exclusively for female reporters.

Kennedy provided liberal access to reporters by

introducing twice-a-day press briefings and granting

television reporters their first access to the president

via press pools. Kennedy's social contacts often

transformed publishers and reporters into unofficial

members of the family clan.

Men who distanced themselves from the press through

limited access, on the other hand, generally have garnered

only small amounts of personal coverage.

Hoover created the longest press blackout in modern

White House history. He refused to meet the press for a

six-month period that included his entire campaign for

re-election. Hoover's nineteenth-century attitude toward

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personal news eliminated any coverage of his personality or

family.

Eisenhower opposed having regular contact with

reporters, held only half as many press conferences as his

predecessor, and kept his sessions with the press as brief

as possible. Eisenhower also routinely placed his press

secretary between the president and the press corps. And,

finally, informal contact between Eisenhower and reporters

was rare.

Nixon, who considers reporters to be his enemies,

decided he could win the presidency only if he denied

reporters all access to him. Once elected, Nixon

restricted his press contact to live, unannounced

television appearances that did not include follow-up

questions. Nixon's average of seven press conferences a

year was the lowest of any president since Herbert Hoover.

Ford attempted to increase press corps access to the

White House, but, with regard to personal coverage, the

press corps became obsessed with the idea that Ford was

awkward and ungainly. Carter also attempted to improve

press access. But when reporters began to scrutinize

Carter's personality, they quickly discovered serious

weaknesses. When coverage focused on these faults. Carter

severely reduced press access.

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These three factors have combined to determine the

amount of personal coverage that any particular president

has received. Men who received large quantities of personal

coverage generally had all three factors working for them;

Teddy Roosevelt, for example, was (1.) an early twentieth

century president (2.) who had a newsworthy personality and

(3.) who provided reporters with liberal access. Men who

seldom were the subjects of personal coverage, on the other

hand, generally had none of the three factors working for

them; Nixon, for example, was (1.) a recent president with

(2.) a less-than-compelling personality, and (3.) he placed

tight restrictions on press access to him. For the

presidents whose personal coverage accounted for a moderate

amount of news coverage, one of the factors worked in his

favor while the other two generally worked against his

attracting personal coverage; Reagan, for example,

possesses a compelling personality, but he is a recent

president who severely limits the amount of access

reporters have to him.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER IV

EARLY-PERIOD PRESIDENTS

The early period of study in this research project is

composed of the presidencies of five men. Together, these

five presidencies represent seven administrations— exactly

one-third of the twenty-one administrations for which news

coverage was examined. The five early-period presidents

are Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson,

Warren G. Harding, and Calvin Coolidge.

In keeping with the central purpose of this study,

these five presidencies must be considered in terms of how

they help to form a pattern of personal news coverage from

the White House. The most effective way to consider their

contribution to such a pattern is to focus on the composite

personal coverage statistics for these five men compared

with the comparable statistics for middle-period and

recent-period presidents.

With regard to the amount of personal coverage

included in their total coverage, the early presidents

ranked as follows:

108

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Roosevelt, first;

Taft, tenth;

Wilson, second;

Harding, third; and

Coolidge, fifth.

The "average" early-period president, therefore,

ranked fourth among the fifteen presidents. Comparable

figures for middle-period and recent-period presidents were

eighth and tenth, respectively.

With regard to the proportion of personal coverage

included in their total coverage, the early presidents had

the following percentages:

Roosevelt, 51 percent;

Taft, 11 percent;

Wilson, 24 percent;

Harding, 22 percent; and

Coolidge, 15 percent.

Therefore, personal coverage provided the "average"

early-period president with 25 percent of his total

coverage. Comparable figures for middle-period and

recent-period presidents were 11 percent and 10 percent,

respectively.

According to both rankings and percentages,

early-period presidents clearly were leaders in personal

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news coverage. They established the high point in personal

news coverage this century. Since that period, the trend

has been toward decreased personal coverage from the White

House.

The remaining portion of this chapter consists of

five major sections. Each section is devoted to one of the

five early-period presidents. Each section consists of

(1.) an introduction containing that particular president's

personal coverage percentage, his rank among the presidents

with regard to personal coverage, and a summary of the

factors that may have contributed to that president's

percentage and rank, (2.) a description of the particular

president's personality and personal life as subjects of

personal news, (3.) a table containing a summary of the

president's newspaper coverage (both general and personal),

(4.) a description of the president's press relations, (5.)

a table listing the amount of personal coverage the

president received in the eight categories of personal

coverage, and (6.) an analysis of the president's personal

coverage, including examples of stories in the categories

in which the president received large amounts of personal

coverage.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Teddy Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt received more personal news coverage

than any other twentieth century president. (See Table 11)

With personal news accounting for 51 percent of his total

coverage, the first president of the century also is first

in personal news coverage. No other president's percentage

was even half that of Roosevelt. When regression analysis

was used to determine how much personal coverage each

president "should have been expected" to receive, Roosevelt

still received 21 percent more personal coverage than

expected— by far the most of any of the fifteen presidents.

Roosevelt perfected the art of turning his life into

front-page publicity. Valuable in this endeavor were his

dynamic personality and personal life, which provided

reporters with a plethora of material to transform into

front-page news. Equally valuable were his revolutionary

changes regarding reporter access to the White House.

Teddy Roosevelt as a Subject of Personal News

It would be difficult to create a more alluring

specimen of human interest than Teddy Roosevelt. At 43, he

became the youngest man ever to enter the White

House— fifteen years younger than his predecessor, William

111

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Table 11.— Teddy Roosevelt's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC total

1902 general 391 261 71 254 1902 personal 257 105 60 184 1903 general 373 373 96 378 1903 personal 162 285 19 38

total general 764 634 167 632 2,197 inches

total personal 419 390 79 222 1,110 inches

% personal 55 62 47 35 51 percent

Rank: First

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McKinley. His years as a "Rough Rider" in the cavalry

during the Spanish-American War gave him a strong element

of adventure. His family wealth and philanthropy added a

dash of celebrity. The contrast of a Phi Beta Kappa key

from Harvard College and a passion for tennis, hiking, and

African safaris lifted him into the category of

fascinating. And his six children— aged 3 to 17 when their

father entered the White House— carried Roosevelt

into the category of an extremely newsworthy individual.

"Teddy" captured the imagination of the public as no

other president of his era. Unlike Grover Cleveland and

William McKinley before him, he was dynamic, with a great

deal of personal magnetism and a flair for the dramatic.

After a childhood of illness that kept him from physical

activity and traditional schooling, he lived his adult life

to its fullest. "Teddy Roosevelt is a man of such

overwhelming physical impact that he stamps himself

immediately on the consciousness,"^^ Roosevelt biographer

Edmund Morris wrote. He was flexible and had a strong

inclination to try new approaches and to break new paths.

In addition, his talent for finding common ground

with people from all socioeconomic levels and his

^^Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979), 20.

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impulsiveness all combined to make him the darling of the

public. Historian John Blum, in the book The Progressive

Presidents. called Roosevelt,

a New York patrician, educated as a boy in Europe and by private tutors, a somewhat foppish graduate of Harvard College, and yet an easy companion of the woodsmen and cowboys he befriended at his ranch in the Dakotas.'^

All of these traits translate into compelling

newspaper copy. There is no stronger evidence of the

public's adoration than the millions upon millions of

Roosevelt clones that have become an element of every

American childhood; teddy bears.

Roosevelt spent several years as a cowboy in the

Badlands. Legend has it that when a gunslinger looked at

TR's eyeglasses and called him "Four Eyes," the future

president knocked the man to the ground and took his gun.

In addition to such lively anecdotes, Roosevelt brought to

the White House reminders of his lively past: a

rhinoceros-foot inkwell on his desk and the heads of wild

animals on the walls of the State Dining Room.

While president, Roosevelt often read three books in

a single evening, and he wrote thirty-seven books, more

than any other president. He used the East Room for bouts

72John Morton Blum, The Progressive Presidents: TR, Wilson. FDR, LBJ (New York: Norton, 1980), 23.

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with Japanese jujitsu experts and Chinese wrestlers, and

secret service men struggled to keep up with him during his

daily hikes and horseback rides. He set a presidential

record at a New Year's Day open house in 1907 by shaking

hands with 8,513 guests. "You go to the White House, you

shake hands with Roosevelt and hear him talk— and then you

go home to wring the personality out of your clothes,"73

one man wrote after meeting the president. During an

assassination attempt, Roosevelt was shot in the chest as

he gave a campaign speech. But the president continued to

speak, not allowing the bullet to be removed until he

finished the speech.

First Lady Ethel Roosevelt ranked seventh among the

century's seventeen first ladies, according to history

professors who participated in a survey through Siena

College in 1982. The wives of the presidents were ranked

in 10 categories. Ethel Roosevelt's highest ranking was

fourth (in background), and her lowest ranking was ninth

(for being her "own woman" and for her value to her

husband)

The six Roosevelt children also made their way into

73Edward Wagenknecht, The Seven Worlds of Theodore Roosevelt (New York; Longmans, Green & Co., 1958), 108.

7^Lloyd Shearer, "How Will History Rate Nancy Reagan?," Parade . 14 June 1987, 8.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the newspaper through various antics, escapades and

personality traits. The youngest child, Quentin, recruited

his classmates into a White House gang of boys who dropped

a giant snowball from the White House portico onto a police

officer. Ethel, 10 years old when her father became

president, became the greatest tomboy in First Family

history, sliding down the White House stairs on a cookie

sheet. The president encouraged the children to play,

giving each of the children his or her own pair of stilts.

The most notorious of the children was the eldest.

Alice lived a free-ranging, unconventional life. The

epitome of her personality came after her lavish White

House wedding. When it came time for the bride to cut her

wedding cake, she approached a military guard and asked to

borrow his sword . . . which she then turned into a cake

knife.75 When critics said the president should take a

firmer hand with his daughter, Roosevelt responded with one

of his most quotable statements; "Listen, I can be

President of the United States— or— I can attend to

Alice."76

75Howard Teichmann, Alice: the Life and Times of Alice Roosevelt Loncfworth (London: Prentice-Hall International, 1979), 61.

76Tebbel and Watts, 337.

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Teddy Roosevelt's Press Relations

Roosevelt was the first president to recognize the

importance of news and its effect upon public opinion. As

TR changed the direction of the White House press operation

by establishing press relations as a recognized public

function of government, he inevitably won the support of

the press. Specifically:

— Roosevelt created space for reporters inside the

White House. The press room's proximity to the Oval Office

made reporters feel like they were working "with" the

president— or perhaps even "for" the president. According

to legend, Roosevelt established the press room after one

cold morning when he found reporters shivering outside the

White House gate.77

— Roosevelt invented the "authoritative source." The

president was willing to chat informally with reporters and

answer any question they asked. His only stipulation was

that the reporters attribute sensitive information to

anonymous sources.

Roosevelt and the press related very well to each

other. He was candid and open with reporters, adopting a

"boy's club" style of press briefing that was entirely new

^^Paul F. Boiler, Jr., Presidential Anecdotes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 49.

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to the reporters. Roosevelt had developed the style while

he was governor. Morris wrote in his biography of

Roosevelt;

Twice daily, without fail, when he was in Albany, he would summon reporters into his office for fifteen minutes of questions and answers— mostly the latter, because his loquacity seemed untrammeled by any political scruples. Relaxed as a child, he would perch on the edge of his huge desk, often with a leg tucked under him, and pour forth confidences, anecdotes, jokes and legislative gossip. . . . When required to make a formal statement, he spoke with deliberate precision. The performance was rather like that of an Edison cylinder played at slow speed and maximum volume. Relaxing again, he would confess the truth behind the statement, with such gleeful frankness that the reporters felt flattered to be included in his conspiracy.7°

Roosevelt's friendliness was not entirely

altruistic. He believed reporters would write positive

stories about him if he made them feel like part of his

team. He courted the reporters during campaign tours by

telling them in advance what he would say in a speech and

whether the information would be new. At the same time,

"Roosevelt honestly liked most of the reporters, and he was

deeply interested in journalism itself,Tebbel and

Watts observed. Since his youth when illness led him to

become a voracious reader, TR had enjoyed the written word.

78Morris, 693.

7 ^ T e b b e l and Watts, 337.

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Roosevelt's number-one rule for reporters was that

off-the-cuff musings and gossip could not be quoted

directly. Reporters remained in the "Paradise Club" as

long as they did not cross the president by writing

unfavorable or off-limits stories; he made these reporters

insiders to an extent never before granted to White House

correspondents. But reporters who were pushed into the

"Ananias Club" were denied all access to White House news.

In some cases, Roosevelt even tried to use his presidential

influence to convince newspaper publishers to fire

reporters who wrote unfavorable stories about him.

The easiest way for reporters to keep their

news-hungry editors happy was to continue writing favorable

stories about Roosevelt, ensuring a constant flow of

material from the White House. Roosevelt sometimes even

wrote news stories himself and then handed them to

correspondents to use verbatim, according to Pollard.

During a 1902 speaking tour, for example, Roosevelt's

carriage was struck by a trolley car. "Roosevelt received

an Associated Press correspondent that night at Sagamore

Hill and dictated a description of the mishap in his own

w o r d s . "80

Although the antics of the first children made good

BOpollard, The Presidents and the Press. 583

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copy and kept the Roosevelt name in the newspaper on dull

news days, the president initially tried to shield his

children from the press. "I want to feel that there is a

circle drawn about my family," he told reporters. "I ask 81 you to respect their privacy." Roosevelt, demonstrating

his flexibility, later relented and eased up on his efforts

to shield his family from publicity.

Teddy Roosevelt's Personal Coverage

The largest portion of Teddy Roosevelt's personal

coverage was in the Ceremonial Events category. This

category, which consists of stories about a president's

participation in events such as building dedications and

holiday celebrations, amounted to 25 percent of TR's

personal coverage. (See Table 12) Roosevelt also

accumulated more coverage in this category than did any

other president, (See Table 49 in the Appendix) with the

next highest figure in this category being Wilson's 10

percent.

Although this category may seem incongruous with

Roosevelt's boisterous, outgoing personality, the fact that

Roosevelt generated such a huge amount of copy through

Ceremonial Events makes perfect sense. Roosevelt brought

press-president relations into the twentieth century by

^^Ibid., 572.

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Table 12.— Categories of Teddy Roosevelt's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1902 1903 1902 1903 1902 1903 1902 1903 Total

A 3 26 3 49 0 0 43 0 124 (11%)

B 57 35 0 10 4 8 8 10 132 (12%)

C 79 4 14 3 12 0 72 5 189 (17%)

D 4 3 68 98 0 0 0 0 173 (16%)

E 14 0 0 0 20 8 0 0 42 (4%)

F 90 3 0 31 8 0 0 23 155 (14%)

G 10 91 20 91 0 3 61 0 276 (25%)

H 0 0 0 3 16 0 0 0 19 (2%)

1,110 inches

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adopting public relations techniques, and participating in

Ceremonial Events was a deceptively easy path to Page One.

Teddy Roosevelt perfected the technique.

Merely by making a speech at the dedication of the

Washington Public Library, for example, Roosevelt garnered

twenty-five inches of space on the front page of The New

York Times. "The dedication exercises lasted barely an

hour," according to the January 8, 1903, story. Roosevelt

began the speech by praising Andrew Carnegie for donating

$350,000 to build the white marble library and then

continued with an inspirational message about the nature of

man:

All you can do is to give him (man) a chance to add to his own wisdom or his own cultivation. [Applause.] The only philanthropic work that counts in the long run is the work that helps a man to help himself. [Applause.] That is true socially, sociologically, and in every way. The man who will submit or demand to be carried isn't worth carrying. [Laughter and applause.] And if you make the effort it helps neither him nor you.82

The frequent interruptions by applause emphasize how

beneficial Ceremonial Events stories were to Roosevelt.

Roosevelt received his second largest portion of

personal news coverage through his Social Life. This

S^The New York Times. "President at Carnegie Library Dedication," 8 January 1903, 1.

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category, which includes attending cultural presentations

and participating in social gatherings, amounted to 17

percent of Roosevelt's personal coverage— more than for any

other president. (See Table 45 in the Appendix) Again,

the most remarkable point about this coverage is how simple

it was for Roosevelt to use his understanding of the news

world to create favorable publicity. He simply notified the

media of his social plans or announced who had attended one

of his social events. Typical was "The President's

Guests," a thirty-inch New York Times story datelined

Oyster Bay, Long Island. The lead read: "President

Roosevelt had four guests at luncheon this afternoon. They

were invited some time ago." The guests were a South

Carolina senator vacationing in New Jersey, a Catholic

priest Roosevelt met on a Colorado hunting trip, a

collector for the port of New York, and an engineer for the

Rapid Transit Commission. "They were unanimous in their

statements that their visits were of a social nature,

according to the story.

Roosevelt received almost as much coverage from

Interaction with "Little People." Stories in this category

amounted to 16 percent of Roosevelt's personal

83 The New York Times. "The President's Guests," 12 July 1902, 1.

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coverage— ranking Roosevelt behind only Ronald Reagan (30

percent) in this category. (See Table 46 in the Appendix)

Roosevelt enjoyed and was adept at mixing with people of

all socioeconomic levels. During a visit to Chattanooga,

Tennessee in 1902, for example, Roosevelt was made an

honorary member of the local brotherhood of locomotive

firemen.The next year he learned that a McKeesport,

Pennsylvania, man had named his 20th child after Roosevelt.

"The President desires to present his congratulations to

yourself and Mrs. Signet and to assure you of his hearty

appreciation of the compliment paid him in the selection of

a name for your son," according to a personal letter

Roosevelt sent to the father and distributed to newspaper

reporters. "He also wishes the young Theodore a long and

prosperous life and extends his highest regards to all

members of your f a m i l y . " 8 5

Personal Idiosycrasies and Vacations/Personal Travel

also produced sizable amounts of personal coverage for

Roosevelt. He was a fascinating character with many facets

to his personality, and he enjoyed traveling to new places.

His success at creating news through public relations.

8 4 L o s Angeles Times. "President Becomes Locomotive Fireman," 9 September 1902, 1.

85The New York Times. "Child Named After President," 10 July 1903, 1.

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however, overshadowed other personal coverage.

It seems surprising that Immediate Family/Homelife

Activities did not provide more personal coverage for

Roosevelt, who had more children living with him in the

White House than has any other twentieth century president.

Two points help explain this situation. First, many

stories about the first children were published. Roosevelt

was so adept at creating personal news through other

techniques, however, that those techniques led to far more

coverage than did the coverage of his family. Second,

early in his presidency (the time in which this coverage

sample was taken), Roosevelt tried to shield his family

from the press. The president was more than willing to

attend ceremonial events and to publicize his social

activities in order to gain the publicity he needed, but he

was not willing to exploit his family. His unwillingness

decreased later in his presidency.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

William Howard Taft received 11 percent of his news

coverage from personal news. (See Table 13) In terms of

the share of his total news coverage produced by personal

coverage, Taft ranks tenth among the fifteen presidents.

Taft is the only early-period president who was not a

leader in personal coverage. Roosevelt ranked first;

Wilson ranked second; Harding ranked third; and Coolidge

ranked fifth. When regression analysis was used to

determine how much personal coverage each president "should

have been expected" to receive, the data showed Taft

received 17 percent less personal coverage than expected

for a president serving when he did.

Taft's low personal coverage figures are a result of

his not having a compelling personal side and his limiting

access to the press. To compensate for Taft's limitations,

reporters wrote personal news about the only subject

available to them— his vacations. Stories in this category

accounted for 53 percent of Taft's personal coverage.

William Howard Taft as a Subject of Personal News

A reporter who covered Roosevelt and Taft provided a

poignant anecdote that illustrates the difference between

126

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Table 13.— William Howard Taft's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC total

1910 general 391 465 402 715 1910 personal 33 20 28 64 1911 general 158 178 55 447 1911 personal 13 46 4 92

total general 549 643 457 1,162 2,811 inches

total personal 45 66 32 156 300 inches

% personal 1 10 7 13 11 percent

Rank: Tenth

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the two men. At a reception a few months before the 1912

election, the reporter spotted a politician Roosevelt had

once entertained at the White House. The reporter stepped

near the former president and whispered, "His name is

Watson." Roosevelt whispered back, "How many children has

he?" The reporter answered, "Five, no, he has six— another

was born just a few days ago." Roosevelt grasped both of

the man's hands, pumped them heartily and exclaimed: "My

dear fellow. I'm so glad to see you again. How are those

five, oh . . . no, I believe you have six children now?"

The man enthusiastically supported Roosevelt in the

campaign.

When the same reporter attended a reception with Taft

a few months later, he recognized an old Taft supporter.

"Mr. President," the reporter whispered, "there's a man

approaching whom you certainly remember." Taft said, "No,

I don't." The reporter told Taft the politician's name,

but, when the man reached Taft, the President said: "They

tell me I ought to remember you, but, bless my soul, I

cannot recall you at all." The irritated man left the

reception and did not support Taft in his re-election

campaign.86

^^John H. Hammond, The Autobioaraohv of John Havs Hammond. Vol. 1 (New York: Ayer Co. Publishers, 1935), 581-82.

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Although Taft could be a jolly, affable man, he was

not a politician and he did not have the common touch that

could have turned these characteristics into major pluses

for a politician, according to historian Henry F. Pringle

in his book The Life and Times of William Howard

Taft.87 Taft was too reserved to enjoy the politicking

that was Roosevelt's lifeblood. Taft's reserved and

conservative demeanor failed to generate much popular

excitement. "He was friendly and good-natured and

sometimes lazy," Pringle wrote.88

The characteristic for which Taft is best remembered

is his corpulence. Six feet tall and weighing 330 to 350

pounds, he ranks as the largest president. But such a

dubious honor did not translate into large quantities of

personal news coverage.

Taft was so fat that he once got stuck in a White

House bathtub, prompting construction of an oversized tub.

Taft's weight made him sensitive to the heat and naturally

lethargic. "Because of his weight, 'Big Bill' Taft was

essentially lazy,"^^ wrote Paul F. Boiler, Jr., in his

87Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft (New York; Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1939), 334,

88ibid.

89Boller, 215.

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book Presidential Anecdotes. It was difficult for

politicians and presidential advisers to support a

president who often dozed off during conferences, Cabinet

meetings, and White House dinners. Once Taft even fell

asleep during a funeral at which he was a front-row

mourner.

Taft also lacked any interests or hobbies that

translated into personal stories.

Helen "Nellie" Taft's Washington legacy is the

thousands of Japanese cherry trees that cover the city in

pale pink each spring. In addition to starting the Cherry

Blossom Festival, Mrs. Taft arranged musical concerts on

the Mall. In 1982, history professors ranked Mrs. Taft

twelfth among the century's seventeen first ladies. Her

lowest rankings were in her value to the president and her

public i m a g e .^8

The Tafts' daughter, Helen, was introduced to society

during her father's first year in office. But then the

president, in contrast to Teddy Roosevelt and his daughter

Alice, packed Helen off to Bryn Mawr College and out of the

Washington spotlight.

Taft was badly defeated in his 1912 re-election

effort, by which time his friendship with Roosevelt had

90Shearer, 8.

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ended. Taft garnered fewer votes than either Wilson or

Roosevelt, who ran as a third-party candidate.

Historian Francis Russell said in his Taft biography.

The Shadow of Blooming Grove, that the happiest period of

Taft's life was after the White House, when he served as a

U.S. Supreme Court justice. "Presidents come and go, but

the Court goes on forever,"91 Taft said. Taft's

temperament was better suited to judicial service than to

politics, Russell wrote, and his nine years in the Supreme

Court Building were much more satisfying than his four

years in the White House.

William Howard Taft's Press Relations

Other than supplying an example of how a president

should not treat the press, Taft did not contribute to the

evolution of the press-president relationship.

An anecdote illustrates Taft's failures at dealing

with the press. When Taft was Secretary of War, he saw

reporters from eight newspapers every day. The owner of

one of the newspapers once visited the White House and

mentioned the name Dick Lindsay. Taft said, "Dick Lindsay?

Who's he?" The owner said, "He's my Washington

correspondent. I understand from him that he comes in to

^Iprancis Russell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove; Warren G. Harding in his Times (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), 441.

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see you every day." Taft said, "Never heard of the name."

Lindsay later convinced his boss that he had, indeed,

visited Taft every day, but the owner returned home with

his liking for Taft considerably diminished.

Taft's disinterest in reporters became a serious

matter under the intense scrutiny of the White House press

corps. After a brief honeymoon period, reporters accused

Taft of withholding information, and the critical stories

began. "Within a year Taft would become one of the most

vilified presidents of the twentieth century,"

historian George Juergens said in his book about press

relations of Progressive Era presidents.93

Taft, in sharp contrast to Roosevelt, refused to play

the public relations game. Instead of building on

Roosevelt's sweeping innovations with the press, Taft

refused to continue many of the practices Roosevelt had

instituted.

Instead of inviting the press into the White House,

Taft tried to hold secret meetings with Cabinet officials,

according to press-president scholar James E. Pollard.

Taft even kept secret his appointment of Charles Evan

92charles Willis Thompson, Presidents I've Known (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1956), 228-29.

93Juergens, 99.

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Hughes to the Supreme Court. On the day Hughes was

appointed, Taft said nothing to the press. At the end of

the day, when all reporters had left the White House press

room, Taft peeked into the room and boasted: "I think I

have scooped the boys this time."94

Another Taft practice that inconvenienced and

irritated reporters was his refusal to release the texts of

speeches until a few hours before they were delivered.

This procedure— and the attitude it represented— angered

Washington correspondents.

Juergens concluded that Taft had no idea that the

success of programs depended first upon winning public

support for them. Juergens quoted Taft as saying:

I am not going to subject myself to the worry involved in establishing a publicity bureau, or attempting to set myself right before the people in any different way from that which is involved in the ordinary publication of what is d o n e . 95

Juergens said Taft's allowing others to interpret his

administration was the worst single decision of his

presidency.96

According to historian Robert C. Hildebrand:

9 4 Pollard, 623.

95Juergens, 96.

96ibid., 97.

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Taft's treatment of the press caused him to lose his grasp of the process of distributing White House news, placing control over the president's public relations in outside hands for the first time in a d e c a d e . 9 7

Taft criticized the amount of personal attention the

press gave to him and his family. The president said he

was annoyed at being "in the limelight and to have oneself

and one's family exposed to all sorts of criticism and 98 curious inquisitiveness."

Taft's attitude toward personal coverage conflicted

with the goals of Archie Butt, an aide who tried to turn

Taft's personal activities into news stories. When Taft

was planning to attend a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game,

for example. Butt encouraged Taft to sit in the grandstand

with fans rather than in a box seat. Butt took pains to

let the press know that Taft wanted to mix with the crowd.

While the press made much of the incident, some major

papers reported that Taft was upset that so much attention

was being paid to his attending the game.

Another illustrative incident took place at Taft's

vacation home in Massachusetts, where there was little news

to report. While the correspondents hung around waiting to

speak to Taft, they heard the president boom from around

97Tebbel and Watts, 353,

98pollard, 603.

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the other side of the porch: "Must I see those men again1

Didn't I see them just the other day?" A few minutes

later, after prompting by Butt, Taft put on his smile and go greeted the reporters. ^

William Howard Taft's Personal Coverage

Taft received 53 percent of his personal coverage in

Vacations/Personal Travel. (See Table 14) Taft's vacation

coverage, three times as much as he received in any other

category, ranked as the second highest figure received by

any president in any category in the entire study. (See

Table 43 in the Appendix) The very high figure is

consistent with a pattern of large amounts of vacation

coverage among do-nothing presidents— 72 percent for

Harding, 50 percent for Coolidge.

After covering Roosevelt's personality so heavily for

the previous six years. White House reporters were

accustomed to writing many personal stories. But Taft

closed the door to White House coverage. While Taft could

keep reporters away from his family, however, he could not

keep them away from the popular vacation resorts the Tafts

enj oyed.

"President Taft will take a rest before Congress

99 ^^Ibid., 609.

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Table 14.— Categories of William Howard Taft's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1910 1911 1910 1911 1910 1911 1910 1911 T o ta l

A 9 5 16 32 0 0 6 92 160 (53%)

B 0 8 0 0 0 0 2 0 10 (3%)

C 17 0 0 0 0 0 12 0 29 (10%)

D 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

E 0 0 4 0 24 0 0 0 28 (9%)

F 7 0 0 0 0 4 44 0 55 (18%)

G 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

H 0 0 0 14 4 0 0 0 18 (6%)

300 in c h e s

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reassembles," began a New York Times story. "The President

feels the need of relaxation. He has been under strain

practically through the whole period of the short

session.

Personal Idiosyncrasies— with 18 percent— ranked as

Taft's second largest category. Many of the stories

stressed the extreme strain Taft was feeling in trying to

keep up with the job. One story was based on a speech

before the Twenty-Four-Hour-a-Day Club of the Young Men's

Christian Association.

"I don't know very much about the early life of the YMCA," said President Taft. "But if they had such a first year as I have had they learned a great deal. You call this a Twenty-Four-Hour-a-Day Club. I don't know of any other institution entitled to bear that name, except, possibly, the Presidency of the United States. . . . As long as the president is alive and kicking, it is 24 hours a day for him."101

Taft's third largest category of personal coverage

was Social Life. The 10 percent figure ranked as the

second highest figure for any president's Social Life,

behind only Teddy Roosevelt's 17 percent. (See Table 45 in

the Appendix) It seems clear that this extensive coverage

lOOThe New York Times. "President to Seek Rest before Congress Convenes," 6 March 1911, 1.

lOlThe New York Times. "Taft's 24-hour-a-day Job," 5 March 1910, 1.

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of Taft's social activities was a result of reporters (and

Roosevelt's training of the reporters) rather than Taft, as

Taft vehemently opposed’ such coverage. "President Taft has

serious objections to being featured as the drawing

attraction at a baseball game," read the lead to a New York

Times story. According to the story, one sign— "Go See

Taft at the Ball Game"— prompted the president to say:

'"Well, that is very near the limit, when they advertise

the President as the chief attraction at a ball g a m e . ' " 1 0 2

Taft was one of three presidents who did not receive

a single story in the category of Interaction with "Little

People." (See Table 46 in the Appendix) Taft also was one

of three presidents who did not have a single story in the

Ceremonial Events category (See Table 49 in the Appendix);

this void is particularly noteworthy because Teddy

Roosevelt had more coverage in this category than did any

other president. Also worth noting is the fact that Taft

received very little coverage in the Immediate

Family/Homelife Activities category; in this category, Taft

received less coverage than every president except Ronald

Reagan. (See Table 44 in the Appendix)

l^^ he New York Times. "Taft Chief Attraction at Baseball Game, Banquet," 2 May 1910, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson ranked second among the fifteen

presidents with regard to the amount of personal news

coverage he received. With personal stories accounting for

24 percent of all news coverage about him, (See Table 15)

Wilson received a higher percentage of personal coverage

than every president except Teddy Roosevelt. Regression

analysis showed that Wilson's actual coverage was 3 percent

lower than "expected" of a president serving when he did.

Like Roosevelt, Wilson attracted personal news

because of his combination of having a newsworthy

personality and personal life while also creating

breakthroughs in press access to the White House.

Woodrow Wilson as a Subject of Personal News

To understand Wilson's appeal, a scholar must place

the Wilson presidency in the context of its time. In 1912

the American people were not looking for a president who

was a matinee idol. The thrust was toward the efficiency

and productivity that could show the world that America was

a global leader, and the election of a college president

was the triumph of the Progressive movement. People

also wanted a prophet who could show the world that the

139

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Table 15.— Woodrow Wilson's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC total

1914 general 687 520 140 406 1914 personal 216 241 44 142 1915 general 326 553 196 217 1915 personal 28 7 53 0

total general 1,013 1,073 336 623 3,045 inches

total personal 244 248 96 142 731 inches

% personal 24 23 29 23 22 percent

Rank: Second

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United States could be the savior of mankind. Historian

John Blum wrote in The Progressive Presidents;

Like so many of his countrymen, he (Wilson) believed in the special virtue and mission of the American people, the worthy successors of the early colonists who had fled a corrupt Europe to build a better society, a city on the hill. . . . The United States, in that view, stood apart from the network of alliances and the imperial rivalries of the old world. American democratic institutions, flourishing on their own soil, provided a model for other nations, old and new.^^-^

Who could be a more appropriate symbol of such hope

than the ascetic Princetonian? Who could provide a better

possibility for change in the White House and in national

and world leadership than a scholar of jurisprudence? It

is no accident that the voters chose a man relatively new

to politics. Nor was it an accident that he was the first

Democrat since Grover Cleveland.

The public was attracted to Wilson's Calvinistic

beliefs and Victorian principles. His Scotch-Irish

bearing. Southern gentility, academic background, formal

public bearing, and advanced age— he was 57 when elected to

the presidency— 57— all contributed to his public image as

a strong, reserved man who was in control of himself and

would be in control of his country.

Wilson was the most highly educated man in the

^®^Blum, 79.

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history of the presidency and the only chief executive who

carried a doctoral diploma. Wilson had devoted most of his

adult life to academe, and the years in the ivory tower far

outweighed his three years in the New Jersey Governor's

Mansion.

Wilson's father was a minister and theology

professor, and the strong Scotch-Irish principles instilled

at home were reinforced with a strict schooling, including

a traditional education in the South's Davidson College in

North Carolina and the University of Virginia Law School.

By nature, Wilson was shy and sensitive. Many

observers took Wilson's ascetic nature the next step and

criticized him as being cold and aloof. Certainly it is

true that Wilson's public image leaned more toward the dour

than the frivolous. Wilson lacked the common touch.

Theodore became "Teddy"; Woodrow never became "Woody."

Wilson's poor health may have influenced the public

perception of his personality and image. He was dyslexic

as a child and suffered poor health throughout his life.

Many historians have observed, however, that Wilson

was not cold. Richard Hofstadter, in American Political

Traditions. said: "Wilson was aloof; he concealed himself

with a habitually drawn curtain of reserve; but he was

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not, as many have concluded, a cold man."l^^ Hofstadter

pointed out that Wilson expressed great warmth to and about

members of his f a m i l y .105

Wilson's family added considerably to the

newsworthiness of his personal life. He brought three

bright, lively daughters with him to the White House. All

three— Eleanor, 20; Jessie, 26; and Margaret, 27— were

active, curious young women. Margaret, for example, led

her sisters in putting on disguises that allowed them to

join sightseeing tours of Washington, including the White

House. Margaret pursued a professional singing career and

sang publicly to raise money for the war effort. Eleanor

and Jessie drew considerable press attention during their

courtships that led to two White House weddings within six

months.

Wilson was one of the most romantic presidents. He

and his first wife, Ellen, exchanged more than a thousand

love notes in their twenty-nine years of marriage. "After

the summer of 1914, when his first wife died, Wilson found

his office a source of misery," Hofstadter said, quoting

Wilson as saying, "'The place (White House) has brought me

104Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It. (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1948), 235.

lOSibid.

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no personal blessing, but only irreparable loss and

desperate suffering.'"106

Within a year, however, he met Edith Bolling Galt, a

curvaceous widow 15 years his younger. Their passionate

romance included many love letters and dinner parties.

Wilson was so smitten with joy that he walked down the

aisle of his honeymoon train singing "Oh, you beautiful

doll, you great big beautiful dolll"^^^

Wilson had many hobbies that added further dimensions

to his personality. While president he played golf every 1 08 day before breakfast, and, when the ground was covered

with snow, Wilson had the balls painted black and kept on

putting. He also had a passion for driving motor cars,

took up horseback riding, frequently walked around the

monuments near the White House, and enjoyed the

presidential yacht.

Despite his PhD, Wilson said he always wanted to go

into vaudeville. He enjoyed the theater, especially

musical comedies, and delighted in telling dialect jokes in

English, Irish, and Scottish. He also enjoyed speaking

lOGlbid., 42

107washinaton Post. 8 February 1987, G4.

lOSEdwin Weinstein, Woodrow Wilson; a medical and psvcholocfical biography (Princeton, N. J. : Princeton University Press, 1981), 300.

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with a black dialect and imitating a drunk— as well as

Teddy Roosevelt. His other loves included poetry,

literature, music and dancing the jig.

Woodrow Wilson's Press Relations

Wilson's relationship with the press was complicated

because it manifested his complex mix of twentieth century

ideas sometimes restrained by his nineteenth century

morals. In keeping with this complexity, his press

relations soared to great heights but later deteriorated

drastically.

The high point occurred March 15, 1913, just eleven

days after the inauguration, when Wilson made the twentieth

century's most significant contribution to press-president

relations; introducing the regular, formal press

conference.

A mechanism that enabled the president to meet with

all reporters at one time was very much in keeping with the

efficiency, economy, and productivity that defined the

Progressive Era. For the first time, all correspondents

met with the president at the same time and on equal

footing. Since that time, the White House press conference

has become so central to press-president relations that a

chief executive jeopardizes his public opinion rating if

more than a month passes without a press conference.

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Wilson made another important contribution to the

evolution of press-president relations by designating his

private secretary, Joseph Tumulty, to deal with the press.

The personable Tumulty thus functioned as a press

secretary, although he was not given that title.

Before entering the White House, Wilson spoke highly

of the principles of a free press, placing him securely in

the Jeffersonian school. He recognized the need for a

president to shape public opinion, and he had every

intention of developing good press relations.

Even before Inauguration Day, however, his

relationship with the press began to sour. He complained

that reporters had misquoted him and taken some statements

out of context. He tricked the reporters before his

inauguration, telling them he was going one place and then

going somewhere different. Press-president scholars Tebbel

and Watts concluded that, before Wilson was even

inaugurated, he and the press already were disillusioned

with each other .109

Wilson simply did not understand the concept of

"news." To him, the word meant announcing a decision

already made or an action already taken. The reporter,

Wilson believed, should simply convey the announcement to

109Tebbel and Watts, 370,

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the public without comment or interpretation. Nor,

according to Wilson's belief, should a reporter seek news

leaks or speculate about what the president might do next.

Simply stated, Wilson's definition of news was solidly

based in the nineteenth century rather than the twentieth

century, and his understanding of news came closer to

matching that of William McKinley than of Teddy Roosevelt.

Juergens, in his study of Progressive Era press

relations, recounted an incident that occurred in 1912.

Three reporters approached the newly elected president and

pointed out that his aloofness hurt his campaign. They

said Roosevelt and other politicians opened up to reporters

informally, allowing the reporters to explain the

politicians' ideas more fully. The three Wilson supporters

asked the president to speak to them on a non-attribution

basis, describing his programs in enough detail that they

could explain the programs to the public. Juergens quoted

one of the reporters as saying;

"Wilson was moved by the offer, but still had to reject it. 'I appreciate this more than I can tell you,' he replied. 'Every word you say is true, and I know it. Don't you suppose I know my own handicaps? I'd do what you advise if I could . . . But it's not in my nature. . . . I can't make myself over.'"110

Wilson discovered that he was uncomfortable with

ll^Juergens, 128.

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press conferences, which involved 100 or more

correspondents, and the press conference concept gradually

faded. The schedule changed from twice a week to once a

week. And after the Lusitania was sunk in May 1915, Wilson

did not see the press in a formal session for a year and a

half. The press conference's creator eventually became one

of the concept's detractors.

Press intrusions into Wilson's personal life were a

frequent cause of presidential repudiation. Wilson did not

understand the concept of human interest, and he certainly

did not believe reporters had any right to ask questions of

his daughters or to follow the family on vacations. On a

pre-inauguration trip to Bermuda, Wilson exploded. Eleanor

Wilson, the president's youngest daughter, was linked

romantically with a Princeton student merely because she

had danced with him one evening.

The next day's morning newspapers announced that I was engaged to him. . . . I was embarrassed, but father was incensed. He asked the correspondents to deny the story and all complied, except one who deliberately sent another yarn to his paper embellished with the usual nonsense about young love and romance. When father sent for him, he produced a telegram from his office in New York, saying 'Send more details about Eleanor Wilson's engagement. Ignore diplomatic denials.' Father told him he might as well take the next ship home as he would never give him another interview.Ill

lllpollard, 634.

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In March 1914, when First Lady Ellen Wilson was dying

of a kidney ailment, the president boiled over. He

chastised the press corps and threatened to cease giving

interviews unless reporters stopped annoying his family.

I am a public character for the time being, but the ladies of my household are not servants of the Government and they are not public characters. I deeply resent the treatment they are receiving at the hand of the newspapers. . . . It is a violation of my own impulses even to speak of these things. . . . It is a constant and intolerable annoyance. . . . Ever since I can remember I have been taught that the deepest obligation that rested upon me was to defend the women of my household from annoyance. Now I intend to do it.112

(Because Wilson's press relations changed so

radically from 1913 to the time he left office in 1921, it

is relevant to note that the Wilson data for this study

were based on coverage in 1914 and 1915, early in the

Wilson presidency.)

Woodrow Wilson's Personal Coverage

Woodrow Wilson received more than half his personal

coverage in the Immediate Family/Homelife Activities

category. (See Table 16) The 53 percent figure in this

category was higher than that of any other twentieth

century president and significantly more than the 39

percent for the next highest president. (See Table 44 in

llZjuergens, 149.

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Table 16.— Categories of Woodrow Wilson's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1914 1915 1914 1915 1914 1915 1914 1915 Total

A G 12 0 0 3 3 G G 18 (2%)

B 78 G 2G8 G 8 G 95 0 389 (53%)

C 0 G 0 G 0 GG G 0

D 26 0 0 G 17 0 6 0 49 (7%)

E 0 16 27 0 0 G 7 G 5G (7%)

F 37 0 6 7 16 5G 34 G 15G (21%)

G 75 G GG 0 G G G 75 (10%)

H G 0 0 G 0 G G 0 G

731 inches

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the Appendix)

The remarkably high figure, close examination

reveals, was largely a result of only the Wilson family

activities that were public, as Wilson closely guarded the

privacy of his wife and daughters. The most significant of

the activities was the wedding of Wilson's youngest

daughter, Eleanor, to William Gibbs McAdoo, Wilson's

Secretary of the Treasury. A White House wedding was fair

game for the press, who covered every conceivable angle of

the wedding.

A pre-wedding incident reveals ample basis for

Wilson's tirades against the press. Eleanor Wilson claimed

that someone intercepted a letter McAdoo sent to her

several weeks before they announced their engagement. "The

envelope had been opened and clumsily resealed," she wrote.

"Shortly after, rumors about the engagement started to

appear prominently in the press, and on March 13 the papers

reported the story as hard fact."113 President and Mrs.

Wilson were forced to make the announcement the same night,

weeks before they had intended.

It is difficult to imagine more elaborate coverage

than that devoted to the wedding, even though the

^^\leanor Wilson McAdoo, The Woodrow Wilsons (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937), 273-74.

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fifteen-minute ceremony was a family affair with fewer than

100 guests— none of them royalty or diplomats. The day

before the wedding, for example, the Atlanta Constitution

ran front-page photographs of the bride and groom with a

pair of cupids etched around them and a photo caption

devoted totally— and inexplicably— to one of the couple's

wedding gifts.

A silver tea service will be presented to Miss Eleanor Wilson by members of the house of representatives. The service consists of six pieces, including a large tray, supplemented by a pair of candelabra, all of a conventional repousse pattern in dull finish

But the Los Angeles Times provided the most

pre-nuptial trivia. The Times printed front-page stories

about the wedding five days in a row. The Times's dogged

reporting paid off, however, with a scoop that would make

any investigative reporter envious. As the big day

approached, the bridal couple had kept the honeymoon

destination a secret. Then, two days before the wedding,

the Times stated, on Page One; "The packing of the bride's

trousseau began today. In the outfits purchased were 115 clothes for a sea voyage."

Wedding-week coverage in the Times totaled 208 column

Atlanta Constitution. 7 May 1914, 1.

115^02 Angeles Times. "To Quit White House for Cabinet Circle," 6 May 1914, 1.

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inches, far surpassing the eighty-seven column inches in

the Constitution or the solitary wedding-day story and

photograph in The New York Times— sans cupids. The

Post-Dispatch paid the least attention to the event,

relegating its wedding-day story to page 6.

A critic might argue such a huge amount of coverage

of one event skewed the statistics. Such an argument is

not valid however, for at least two reasons. First, two of

Wilson's daughters and Wilson himself were married and his

first wife was buried during his White House years. So

such a public activity as a wedding was not an isolated

event. Second, the extent of minutiae that correspondents

reported about the wedding is the best example of

presidential trivia that can be found in the last century.

It is difficult to imagine how many details would have been

written about the three Wilson daughters had their father

not objected to coverage of his family.

Wilson's second largest category was Personal

Idiosyncrasies. These stories, which accounted for 21

percent of his personal coverage, provided glimpses into

the president's personality.

The New York Times, for example, carried the headline

"President Is Captured" above a story about Wilson slipping

out of the White House to stroll through the nation's

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capital. "The President was out on a little personally

conducted shopping expedition. He stopped at his bank,

inquired about his balance, and then looked over some new

clothes at a down-town tailor's." When two secret service

agents nabbed Wilson near the Executive Office Building,

the president boasted: "I came very near getting away that

t i m e . " 1 1 6 Another story described the large tent Wilson

erected in the White House flower garden so he could work

during the summer heat. "The tent is to be fitted with

telephones, push buttons and the other essentials of a

modern office,"117 the Los Angeles Times reported.

Wilson's third highest category was Ceremonial

Events. The 10 percent figure ranked Wilson higher than

every president except Teddy Roosevelt for coverage in this

category. (See Table 49 in the Appendix) A typical story

described Wilson's participation in Fourth of July

festivities at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

Wilson's low percentage figures in three categories

illustrate certain facets of his personality. The 5

percent in Interaction with "Little People" dramatizes his

lack of the common touch; the absence of even a single

ll^The New York Times. "President Is Captured," 11 July 1914, 1.

117LOS Angeles Times. "White House in a Tent during Summer," 3 May 1914, 1.

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story about Wilson's Social Life demonstrates his

unwillingness to open his private life to the press; the 2

percent figure in Vacations/Personal Travel— the only

president with a lower figure was Lyndon

Johnson— illustrates Wilson's dedication to work.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Warren G. Harding

Warren G, Harding received the third largest

concentration of personal coverage, 22 percent. (See Table

17) Harding's percentage was larger than that of every

president except TR and Wilson, continuing the pattern of

large amounts of personal coverage for early-period

presidents. According to regression analysis, Harding

received 3 percent less personal coverage than "expected"

of a president serving when he did.

Unlike Roosevelt and Wilson, however, Harding did not

have a particularly newsworthy personality. Nor did the

"do-nothing" president have an active personal life

suitable for the daily newspaper. Determined reporters,

therefore, relied almost solely on coverage of Harding's

vacations for their personal stories. Vacation coverage

accounted for 72 percent of Harding's personal coverage,

the highest figure any president received in any category.

Reporter access to Harding was among the best in the

history of the presidency. Harding, the only man to ascend

to the White House after a career in the newspaper

business, brought the press corps into his confidence as

never before or since.

156

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Table 17.— Warren G. Harding's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC total

1922 general 750 173 246 230 1922 personal 56 49 71 38 1923 general 795 489 258 446 1923 personal 175 115 134 95

total general 1,545 662 504 676 3,387 inches

total personal 231 164 205 133 733 inches

% personal 15 25 41 20 22 percent

Rank: Third

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Warren G. Harding as a Subject of Personal News

Harding was a handsome man whose easy-going style

enabled him to charm people, especially in one-on-one and

small-group meetings. Harding's good looks and personable

style arrived on the national political scene at a time

when the American people were perfectly satisfied to elect

a leader on the basis of these superficial qualities.

Simple-minded and easy-going, Harding was the kind of

leader the country craved after being saturated with

Wilsonian idealism. As historian Wilfred E. Binkley quoted

one powerful senator as saying, "'The times did not require

a first-rater as President.' With the fresh memories

of war, the people wanted to relax and enjoy life . . . and

they had no objection to their president doing the same.

As a matter of fact, having a president who never allowed

the responsibilities of the presidency to get in the way of

his enjoying life may have assuaged the guilt of many

Americans who wanted to relax and enjoy their own lives.

Harding played golf twice a week and may have been

the biggest baseball fan ever to serve as president.

Harding played poker in the White House and established an

unofficial but influential "Poker Cabinet." During one

118 Wilfred E. Binkley, The President and Congress (New York: Random House, 1962), 268.

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hand, he even gambled away an entire set of White House

china. Even though he served during the days of

Prohibition, Harding maintained a plentiful stock of

bootleg liquor and was a regular at the Chevy Chase Country

Club.

Newspapers of the era did not print specifics about

the illicit activities of the country's leader. So news

accounts did not even hint of the president sneaking off to

Washington burlesque houses, having secret liaisons with

various women, and serving as a puppet of the opportunistic

men who played poker with him.

Historians, however, have documented these

activities. In The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents

William A. DeGregorio described Harding's financial support

for the daughter of his long-time mistress Nan Britton.

The historian also wrote of Harding's affair with Carrie

Phillips, the wife of one of Harding's close

f r i e n d s . And Binkley wrote in The President and Congress

of Harding's poor judgment regarding friends.

His misplaced confidence in designing friends led to gigantic scandals that broke after his death, but his dawning awareness of the appalling consequences of his blunders in appointing corrupt subordinates is believed

119william A. DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (New York: Dembner Books, 1984), 343-35.

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to have contributed to, if it did not cause, his physical breakdown and sudden death .120

Scandal also played a role in Harding's death. In

the summer of 1923, the president escaped Washington for a

vacation in the West. He had a heart attack in San

Francisco and was put to bed in the Palace Hotel. On the

evening of August 2, Florence Harding was reading to her

husband from a favorable Saturday Evening Post article.

"That's good," the president said. "Go on. Read some

more."121 He died moments later, according to Mrs.

Harding. But for half a century rumors have suggested that

the first lady may have used more than her reading voice to

ease her husband into slumber.

Florence Harding came from a wealthy background and

became Harding's "Duchess." Her background, like the

president's, fit the times. For during the 1920s the

American people worshipped royalty and were pleased to

treat the president and first lady in a regal manner. It

is only history that remembers Mrs. Harding as the worst

first lady of this century. That is how history professors

ranked her in 1982. Among the seventeen women, she ranked

sixteenth in the categories of public image, value to the

12ÛBinkley, 273.

IZlBoller, 231.

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country, integrity and intelligence; she ranked at the

very bottom in value to her husband, courage and 122 background.

Warren G. Harding's Press Relations

Harding is the only president who came to the White

House after a career in journalism, and the editor of the

Marion (Ohio) Star sometimes is considered to be the only

president who maintained excellent press relations

throughout his presidency.

In his analysis of press-president relations, James

E. Pollard said:

For all his weaknesses (as president), Harding advanced the status of relations between the White House and the press. . . . By and large, Harding and the White House correspondents worked together on the basis of complete frankness and mutual respect.123

Because of Harding's professional background,

reporters gained valuable ground and attained considerably

higher status in the White House. "He brought to his

office the advantage of the newspaperman's viewpoint,"

Pollard said. "He also had the advantage of long

acquaintance with many Washington news men and a capacity

for friendship with them on a common ground which was

^^^hearer, 8.

123pollard, 712.

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denied to most other Presidents."

Harding, unlike Wilson, understood the news business

and news reporters. The former newsman was comfortable

with reporters— perhaps more than he was with politicians.

During press conferences and other meetings with the press,

Harding chatted openly and amiably with reporters, lifting

the amount of interchange to new levels.

Harding made his most significant contribution to the

evolution of the press-president relationship by reviving

the White House press conference. Wilson introduced the

regular group meetings with reporters early in his

administration but later abandoned press conference

concept.

Harding revived the twice-a-week schedule, becoming

the first president to hold regularly scheduled press

conferences throughout his presidency. "He put them

(reporters) forever in his debt by re-establishing the

fixed press conferences twice a week and by adhering to

this program,"125 Pollard said in The Presidents and the

Press.

Another major contribution by Harding was his

introduction of the concept of special accommodations for

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reporters. When Harding became a presidential candidate,

the Republican Party constructed a three-room house next to

the candidate's home explicitly for reporters. From that

humble beginning have grown such press corps accommodations

as press suites in hotels and chartered jets.

To ensure the relaxed image that would propel Harding

to political success, the Republican Party did not want

Harding running an active, visible campaign. So party

leaders placed him on his front porch in Marion and invited

the reporters to stay nearby. In the words of one

observer:

"Once each day, and not infrequently twice, the presidential candidate, bareheaded, visited the boys in what they called their 'shack.' Usually he seated himself on the rail of the porch and after lighting a stogie or cigarette . . . or bumming a chew of fine cut, he'd say 'Shoot!' Then in a jolly, intimate, confidential fashion, he answered without evasion any question that might be fired at him. °

The reporters were ecstatic. Never before had such

political candor even been dreamed of. At the end of the

campaign, reporters gave Harding a private banquet— another

first in press-president relations, according to

press-president scholars Tebbel and Watts. "'There isn't a

man here who is not impressed with your character,"' one

reporter said at the celebration. "'If you don't make a XZ6 Tebbel and Watts, 395.

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fine president, our judgment is no good and we are in the

wrong trade.

Members of the press corps lined up behind the new

president as if he were their benevolent managing editor.

Harding played poker with his closest reporter friends and

invited them to late-night meetings on the north portico of

the White House.

It had been a very long time since correspondents had played poker with a president, and no one could remember when reporters had their hands shaken at the door of the press conference room and been greeted individually or referred to as "our newspaper family."128

Warren G. Harding's Personal Coverage

Seventy-two percent of the personal news about

Harding described his vacations. (See Table 18) This

extremely high figure is the largest any of the fifteen

presidents received in any of the eight categories of

personal coverage. (See Table 43 in the Appendix)

To a scholar familiar with the Harding presidency, it

is clear that reporters wrote about Harding's vacations

because little else was happening at the White House. The

high figure is consistent with the pattern among do-nothing

presidents. Vacations accounted for 53 percent of Taft's

127lbid., 396.

128lbid., 397.

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Table 18.— Categories of Warren G. Harding's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1922 1923 1922 1923 1922 1923 1922 1923 Total

A 14 169 30 115 9 131 10 49 527 (72%)

B 42 6 11 0 55 3 28 0 145 (20%)

C 0 0 8 0 0 0 0 0 8 (1%)

D 0 0 0 0 7 0 0 46 53 (7%)

E 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

F 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

G 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

H 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

733 inches

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coverage and 50 percent of Coolidge's. The three

presidents received huge amounts of vacation coverage

because White House reporters had little else to write

about.

Further testimony to the overwhelming coverage of

Harding's vacations is the fact that he accumulated more

total personal coverage than twelve of the fifteen

presidents without having a single story in four of the

eight categories— Interaction with Celebrities, Personal

Idiosyncrasies, Ceremonial Events, or Extended Family.

Most Harding vacation stories were about his trips to

Florida. Curiously, the phrasing in some of the stories

makes Harding sound like a much more industrious president

than history remembers. One Los Angeles Times story began:

Freed from the cares of state more completely than at any time since his administration began two years ago. President Harding and Mrs. Harding and a party of friends tonight were in the southland en route to Florida and a month's vacation.129

During his vacations, Harding putted a golf ball in

the Florida jungle, cruised down the Indian River on a

houseboat, and accepted the challenge of a golf course with

water hazards that served as home to alligators that were

129 Los Angeles Times. "Harding Starts To Play," 6 March 1923, 1.

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reputed to lie in wait for poorly driven balls.

In the summer of 1923, Harding planned a trip to

Alaska, and The New York Times told of his stop in Spokane,

Washington, where the president realized a boyhood dream of

driving a locomotive. "The president showed a keen

interest is his experience and asked many questions of

Engineer Arthur Blundell, whose place he took for the

twelve-mile r u n , "1^0 according to the story. A month

later, Harding was dead.

Stories about Harding's Immediate Family/Homelife

Activities accounted for 20 percent of his personal

coverage and ranked as his second highest category. The

Hardings were a very popular couple, and many stories were

about First Lady Florence Harding. One New York Times

story carried the headline: "Mrs. Harding 111, but Not

Seriously; Not a Breakdown, and She Will Be Out Soon." The

story contained no medical details, reading more like a

testimonial to the first lady's social contributions.

She has been very active, accompanying her husband to practically all official functions and invariably when he has appeared before Congress. She has been prominent in local social and philanthropic work and has been a frequent visitor to World War veterans in the various hospitals in this vicinity. The

1 in The New York Times. "Harding Drives Locomotive for 12 Miles," 3 July 1923, 1.

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illness is nothing in the nature of a break-down, but is rather due to a slight organic trouble.

Harding's third largest category of personal coverage

was Interaction with "Little People." The 7 percent in

this category included a four-column Atlanta Constitution

photograph of Harding posing with half a dozen Georgians

who had traveled to Washington to protest proposed 132 modifications in the duty on vegetable oil.

Harding was the only president not to receive a

single story in the Personal Idiosyncrasies category (See

Table 48 in the Appendix); this lack of stories is

tantamount to saying that reporters did not write any

stories about the man's character. Harding also was one of

only two presidents not to receive any stories in the

Interaction with Celebrities category. (See Table 47 in

the Appendix)

ISlThe New York Times. "Mrs. Harding 111, But Not Seriously," 8 September 1922, 1.

132Atlanta Constitution. 12 May 1923, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Calvin Coolidqe

Calvin Coolidge received the fifth largest portion of

personal coverage. With personal stories accounting for 15

percent of his coverage, (See Table 19) Coolidge is another

early-period president who received large quantities of

personal coverage. He attracted more personal news than

every president except the two Roosevelts, Wilson, and

Harding.

Coolidge, like Taft and Harding, lacked a compelling

personality or personal life. So determined reporters, as

they did with Taft and Harding, compensated for the

deficiency by providing extensive coverage of Coolidge's

vacations. Those stories amounted to 50 percent of

Coolidge's total personal coverage. Coolidge's open access

to the press certainly contributed to his receiving

extensive personal coverage.

Calvin Coolidge as a Subject of Personal News

Coolidge, like Harding, had a personality that was

right for the times. After ascending to the presidency

when Harding died, Coolidge was re-elected in a landslide

by voters who were still stinging from the idealism of

Wilson and the memories of world war. Those voters wanted

169

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Table 19.— Calvin Coolidge's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-DAC total

1925 general 885 414 181 235 1925 personal 60 44 54 18 1926 general 718 171 198 245 1926 personal 123 61 35 52

total general 1,603 585 379 480 3,047 inches

total personal 183 105 89 70 447 inches

% personal 11 18 23 15 15 percent

Rank: Fifth

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to "Keep Cool and Keep Coolidge." They found great appeal

in the characteristics that captured the essence of their

"cool" president— inactive, serene, somnolent. In

describing Coolidge's presidency, H. L. Mencken wrote;

His chief feat during five years and seven months in office was to sleep more than any other President— to sleep more and say less. Wrapped in magnificent silence, his feet upon his desk, he drowsed away the lazy days. 133

The Coolidge characteristic that has become legend is

his propensity for sleep. He slept eleven hours a day. He

went to bed at 10 p.m. and got up between 7 and 9 a.m. He

took a nap each afternoon from 1:30 until 3:30 or 4 or 4:30

or 5. Coolidge's favorite pastime, in keeping with his

desire for rest, was going on retreats and vacations. He

had favorite vacation spots in Massachusetts, New York,

South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Georgia.

Alice Roosevelt Longworth provided one of the most

amusing descriptions of Coolidge when she remarked that he

looked as if he had been weaned on a pickle.And

Dorothy Parker of New Yorker magazine provided the most

memorable one-liner upon Coolidge's death. When she heard

133%. L. Mencken, A Carnival of Buncombe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), 139.

134Claude M. Feuss, Calvin Coolidqe: The Man From Vermont (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976), 300.

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Coolidge had died, Parker asked: "How can they t e l l ? " ^ 3 5

First Lady Grace Coolidge, a former teacher to the

deaf and dumb, seemed a perfect match for her husband. She

ranked eleventh among the century's seventeen first ladies,

according to history professors. Her highest individual

rating was eighth in public image, and her lowest was

fourteenth in value to her husband.136

The Coolidges' two sons were teenagers during the

White House years, but the president was never perceived as

being particularly close to either of the boys.

Calvin Coolidge's Press Relations

After the scandals that marked the end of the Harding

administration, some presidents would have backed away from

the press and closed the door on close press relations.

But Coolidge offered an open-door relationship with

reporters. And, unlike many presidents, Coolidge sustained

that openness throughout his administration. One observer

wrote in The Nation magazine in 1927, "Since Mr. Coolidge

entered the White House he has had more solid press support

than any other President."137

13Bennett Cerf, Trv and Stop Me (New York: Random House, 1944), 261.

13^Shearer, 8.

137The Nation, 16 March 1927.

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Coolidge acted like he had led press conferences all

his life, handling questions adeptly. Correspondents were

particularly surprised at Coolidge's candor. If he did not

know the answer to a question, he admitted his lack of

knowledge with disarming frankness. From the beginning,

Coolidge's sessions with reporters were courteous and

amicable. In The Talkative President. Howard H. Quint and

Robert H. Ferrell observed:

Coolidge . . . was always friendly and considerate with reporters. His friendship was not merely tactical. He enjoyed talking to reporters and revealed a loquacity altogether unexpected of the man whom the public had dubbed "Silent Cal."138

Reporters appreciated the fact that Coolidge

recognized the potential of the burgeoning electronic

media. He was the first president who catered to the needs

of broadcast journalism, helping radio come of age. In

1925, twenty-one stations from New York to California

joined in the first coast-to-coast radio hook-up and the

first broadcast of a presidential inauguration. After that

successful transmission, Coolidge took care to speak slowly

and with few words. The taciturn Coolidge soon mastered

^38%oward H. Quint and Robert H. Ferrell, The Talkative President (Amherst, Mass.: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1964), 21.

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the style. Newsman William Allen White wrote;

He developed talent as a radio speaker. He spoke slowly, used short sentences, discarded unusual words, was direct, forthright and unsophisticated in his utterances. And so, over the radio, he went straight to the popular heart. 139

Coolidge spoke to the growing radio audience at least

once a month throughout his six years in office.

Coolidge made another significant press-president

contribution by institutionalizing the twice-a-week White

House press conference. After Harding revived the

sessions, there was doubt whether the practice would

continue beyond the former newsman's two years in office.

But Coolidge carried on the tradition. He became the

second president in a row to hold the regular sessions,

ensuring they would have a continuing role in White House

news coverage.

Coolidge also increased the use of photographs by

staging still photographs and appearing in newsreels, which

were popular in 1920s movie theaters. It was Coolidge who

pioneered the concept that evolved into the modern-day

public relations technique known as the photo opportunity.

The momentous occasion was July 4, 1922, Coolidge’s 55th

birthday. The president, while vacationing in the Black

139william Allen White, Calvin Coolidge (New York: Macmillan, 1925), 139.

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Hills of South Dakota, the president invited newspaper and

newsreel photographers to take pictures of him. To ensure

wide distribution of the photographs, he appeared at the

session wearing a cowboy outfit.

With regard to personal coverage, Coolidge strongly

opposed coverage of his family, particularly his two

teenaged sons. "They are just such boys as some of you

(reporters) have, I have no doubt. I hope that they can

remain at school without much of anything in the way of

publicity."140

Calvin Coolidge's Personal Coverage

Fifty percent of Coolidge's personal coverage came

from his Vacations/Personal Travel. (See Table 20)

Harding (72 percent) and Taft (53 percent) were the only

presidents who received more coverage in this category, and

Coolidge's percentage was more than twice the figure for

the president who ranked fourth. (See Table 43 in the

Appendix) During the administrations of all three of the

do-nothing presidents, reporters wrote about presidential

vacations because little else was happening in the White

House and because such presidential getaways sometimes

lasted two months or longer.

The most illustrative of the Coolidge vacation

^^^Quint and Ferrell, 37

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Table 20.— Categories of Calvin Coolidge's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1925 1926 1925 1926 1925 1926 1925 1926 Total

A 7 100 16 39 3 31 4 23 223 (50%)

B 0 4 20 0 9 0 0 0 33 (7%)

C 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 10 (2%)

D 26 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 30 (7%)

E 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

F 23 10 3 0 39 4 0 13 92 (21%)

G 0 G 0 0 0 0 0 16 16 (4%)

H 4 9 5 22 3 0 0 0 43 (10%)

447 inches

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stories ran in The New York Times under the headline:

"Coolidge Camp Sets Record In Volume of News Sent." The

story from the Adirondacks began:

The greatest news volume record for any President's vacation has been attained in the sixty-two days of President Coolidge's stay here. Special dispatches sent to the newspapers totaled 1,209,739 words, while the press associations sent about one-third that amount.141

The story went on to describe how the telegraph

company had supplied around-the-clock facilities and five

operators to keep pace with the vacation stories.

When reading the stories, it becomes clear how

desperate reporters had become for news. One

twenty-eight-inch Times story, for example, devoted six

paragraphs to speculation regarding Coolidge's fishing

success. Three of those paragraphs read:

The President himself has not yet spoken of his experience .... The only information about the fishing excursion has drifted to the correspondents through secret service men and others attached to the White House staff. Newspapermen . . . heard the reports that the President had made good on his promise to fish. This report drifted out of the camp an hour after the President is supposed to have landed his first fish. It was promptly denied, however, some secret service men saying he did nothing in the afternoon but walk about the grounds. But at 10:30 o'clock last night . . . Everett Sanders, Secretary to the

141ihe New York Times. "Coolidge Camps Sets Record In Volume of News Sent," 6 September 1926, 1.

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President, returned from the camp and announced that the President not only had gone fishing but had caught a pike or a pickerel. The size was not specified. First the weight was estimated at one pound, and after the telegraph wires had carried this detail the weight grew to three pounds and a half, and the size to fifteen inches. The guide accompanying the President, who says he can tell with his eye the true weight of a fish, asserted this morning that it did not weigh an ounce under four p o u n d s . 142

Coolidge received his second largest portion of

personal coverage— 21 percent— from Personal Idiosyncrasies

stories. Many focused on Coolidge's legendary preference

for a slow, leisurely life. Stories of his 54th birthday,

for example, told of the Coolidges going to church and

having "a quiet family dinner in the evening."143 &

story about New Year's activities began: "The year 1925,

arriving in Washington tonight, received a hilarious welcome

from the city's population, but found the capital's most

distinguished resident, Calvin Coolidge, sound asleep."144

Coolidge's third largest category was Extended

Family. His 10 percent figure ranked Coolidge ahead of

every president except Jimmy Carter and John Kennedy. (See

142ipbe New York Times. "Mosquitos Keep Coolidge Indoors," 9 July 1926, 1.

143The New York Times. "Coolidge Rests on Birthday," 5 July 1926, 1.

144l o s Angeles Times. "Coolidge New Year's Eve," 1 January 1925.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 179

Table 50 in the Appendix) All the stories were about

Coolidge's father. Col. John Coolidge. According to one

story, the elder Coolidge's doctors advised him to spend

the winter at the White House. "It is reported that

Colonel Coolidge does not approve of the plans. He likes

to be among his neighbors and enjoys the hard Winters at

Plymouth Notch, which is cut off from communications at

times for as long as a w e e k . " ^ 4 5

Coolidge and Harding were the only presidents who did

not have a single story in the Interaction with Celebrities

category. Coolidge ranked thirteenth in the amount of

stories about his Immediate Family/Homelife— trailing

everyone but William Howard Taft and Ronald Reagan. (See

Table 44 in the Appendix)

145 The New York Times. "Col. John Coolidge to Winter at White House," 3 November 1925, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER V

MIDDLE-PERIOD PRESIDENTS

The middle period in this research study is composed

of the presidencies of four men. Together, these four

presidencies represent seven administrations— one-third of

the twenty-one administrations for which news coverage was

examined. The middle-period presidents are Herbert Hoover,

Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower.

In keeping with the central purpose of this study,

these presidencies must be considered with regard to how

they helped to form a pattern of personal news coverage

from the White House. The most effective way to consider

their contribution to such a pattern is to focus on

composite personal coverage statistics for these five men

compared with comparable statistics for early-period and

recent-period presidents. With regard to the amount of

personal coverage included in their total coverage, the

middle-period presidents ranked as follows:

Hoover, thirteenth;

Roosevelt, fourth;

180

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Truman, seventh; and

Eisenhower, fourteenth.

The "average" middle-period president, therefore,

ranked eighth among the fifteen presidents. Comparable

figures for early-period and recent-period presidents were

fourth and tenth, respectively.

With regard to the proportion of personal coverage

included in their total coverage, the middle-period

presidents had the following percentages :

Hoover, 8 percent;

Roosevelt, 16 percent;

Truman, 12 percent; and

Eisenhower, 7 percent.

Therefore, personal coverage provided the "average"

middle-period president with 11 percent of his total

coverage. Comparable figures for early- and recent-period

presidents were 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

According to both rankings and percentages,

middle-period presidents received less personal coverage

than early presidents but more than recent presidents. The

trend clearly has been toward less personal news coverage

from the White House.

The remainder of this chapter consists of four major

sections devoted to the four middle-period presidents.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover ranks thirteenth among this century's

presidents with regard to personal coverage he received,

with personal stories accounting for only 8 percent of his

total news coverage. (See Table 21) Hoover received a

smaller percentage of personal coverage than every

president except Eisenhower and Nixon. He also received

less personal coverage than any other middle-period or

early-period president. According to regression analysis,

Hoover received 15 percent less personal coverage than

"expected" for a president serving when he did.

His small amount of personal coverage was the

consequence of the combination of his not having a

newsworthy personality or personal life and his placing

severe limitations on reporter access to him.

Herbert Hoover as a Subject for Personal News

Hoover's strongest characteristics are captured in

the appelâtion most often attached to him: the Great

Engineer. He was an industrious, no-nonsense engineer and

administrator who applied sound, rational thinking to any

problem. But, as Hoover biographer David Burner wrote, "None

of these energetic efforts awakened any significant public

182

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Table 21.— Herbert Hoover's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC total

1930 general 692 573 312 243 1930 personal 16 41 45 4 1931 general 548 480 502 237 1931 personal 79 30 61 3

total general 1,240 1,053 814 480 3,587 inches

total personal 95 71 106 7 279 inches

% personal 8 7 12 1 8 percent

Rank: Thirteenth

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imagination or commitment."146 The only civil engineer

ever to reach the White House also was a man who liked to

work alone. Hoover was aloof, shy, sometimes brusque and

abrupt, wary of crowds, awkward at social situations, and

extremely sensitive to criticism. The colorless engineer

who preferred to work alone was doomed to headline

oblivion.

Evidence of Hoover's lackluster personality had

existed long before he entered the White House. Hoover

biographer George H. Nash, for example, wrote that

Australian journalists noted that Hoover lacked a

"prepossessing personality" when he visited that country in

1897. Reserved and serious, he had, in one journalist's

words, a "dull, toneless voice," and no sense of humor,"

Nash wrote. "Furthermore, he had a peculiar habit of

looking down and away from people with whom he was talking

and of doodling at his desk with a pencil while listening.

Not the traits that legends are made o f . "^47

Hoover's avocations were those of a solitary man:

fishing, escaping into mystery novels and tossing a

^46gavid Burner, Hoover: A Public Life (New York: Knopf, 1979), 253.

147Qeorge H. Nash, The Life of Herbert Hoover (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1983), 68.

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medicine ball around every morning before b r e a k f a s t .^48

Hoover also was a self-reliant man whose expectations were

that every American had the strength and dignity to enable

him and to motivate him to pull himself upward voluntarily.

Burner wrote of Hoover:

A President plodding faithfully along his own private, uncommunicative course could not expect the public voluntarily to give him its trustful support. Yet it was inauthentic for a Quaker to pose. The President, who knew the importance of confidence, could not bring himself to manufacture it.l49

Lou Hoover was a private woman whose White House

social life revolved around a small group of friends. In

1982, history professors ranked her eighth among this

century's first ladies. Her lowest rankings, twelfth out of

the seventeen women, were in public image and value to the

president. Her highest rankings, sixth, were in background

and integrity.

The Hoovers' two sons were grown by the time their

father became president. They contributed virtually

nothing in the way of personal news coverage.

^48Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1984), 122.

^49Burner, 253.

ISOghearer, 8.

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Herbert Hoover's Press Relations

During the four years Hoover resided in the White

House, press-president relations sank to a new low that

they would not again approach until the days of Richard

Nixon.

Hoover's dismal press relations are best illustrated

by the fact that his only significant contribution to

press-president relations was his creation of a longer

press blackout than any of the presidents who have followed

him. Hoover's relations with the press deteriorated to the

point that he held no press conferences during his

re-election campaign. He then continued the press blackout

until he left office four months later. In all. Hoover

created a six-month period in which he and the press had no

contact.

Hoover's negative press relations began immediately

after he entered the White House. As soon as reporters

wrote a few unfavorable stories about Hoover's personal

life, press relations turned sour. Burner wrote:

Small things were leaked: that Mrs. Hoover took sound tests to improve her voice; that a dog from the presidential kennels bit a Marine. A story about the presidential car's speed en route to Hoover's Virginia camp on the Rapidan River annoyed him greatly.151

^^^Burner, 254,

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Despite the trivial nature of the unfavorable

stories. Hoover immediately halted the release of all White

House news except bare official announcements. Hoover also

pressured his secret service men to find the source of the leaks.^52

Hoover biographer Richard Norton Smith pinpointed the

engineer-turned-president's problems with the press in his

book. An Uncommon Man.

At the heart of the problem lay Hoover's own inability to fill the role of presidential persuader, or play the political games his opponents dominated by default. . . . Added to this was a thin skin and an undeniable streak of self-righteousness.153

The public. Hoover said, wanted a "President on a

white charger of wrath with a flashing sword of

slogans.The Great Engineer would not mount a white

charger. Instead, he continued to spout his self-righteous

rhetoric. "They (the people) do not realize that the

safety of a nation lies in the infinite drudgery of

determination of fact and policy.

ISZpollard, 746.

IS^Smith, 129.

154ibid.

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Hoover was adamant about not promoting himself. For

example, three Detroit children once visited him in

Washington, begging him to release their father who was

imprisoned on a charge of auto theft. Hoover released the

man but insisted the press not be notified.Nor would

Hoover allow the public to know that he frequently sent

money to relatives and strangers in need.

The president's strong opposition to self-promotion

led inevitably to reduced access. "(Hoover aide) Larry

Richey, who reminded one Hoover associate of a mother hen

with a single chick, hid the Chief behind a stone wall of

inaccessibility,"157 smith said.

The rational Hoover said personal items about the

First Family were legitimate news. "Some account of a

family living at the White House may be of interest,"158

he said. But Hoover held onto his nineteenth-century views

about personal news. He felt that he and his family were

entitled to complete p r i v a c y . 1^9 smith said presidential

156ibid.

157ibid., 112.

158Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover. The Cabinet and the Presidency (New York: Macmillan Company, 1952), 320.

159pollard, 7 4 9 .

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advisers suggested that Hoover's grandchildren should be

brought into the spotlight to humanize the dour president.

"He flatly refused,Smith said.

Hoover chose the Rapidan River camp for its seclusion

as well as its good fishing. He banned reporters from

following him there, even though he conducted high-level

business at the retreat. Reporters were forced to use

shoddy facilities during their stakeouts, often with no way

to transmit their stories from their camp=_ which was

thirty-three miles from the Hoover retreat. Many hid in

the bushes near the camp, even though they usually were

discovered and thrown out.

Herbert Hoover's Personal Coverage

Herbert Hoover received his highest percentage of

personal coverage in the Interaction with Celebrities

category. (See Table 22) Hoover's 39 percent figure

ranked him second only to Richard Nixon (42 percent) in

this category. (See Table 47 in the Appendix)

Many of Hoover's celebrity dealings were with

European royalty he had met while involved in World War I

engineering and relief work. Typical was a story that

described the Hoovers' wedding gift to Princess Marie Jose

of Belgium when she married the Italian crown prince. "Ten

IGOgmith, 112.

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Table 22.— Categories of Herbert Hoover's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1930 1931 1930 1931 1930 1931 1930 1931 T otal

A 0 0 13 6 23 22 0 0 64 (23%)

B 0 4 22 5 4 6 0 3 44 (16%)

C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

D 0 17 0 13 3 0 0 0 33 (12%)

E 10 58 4 0 12 26 0 0 110 (39%)

F 6 0 2 6 3 5 0 0 22 (8%)

G 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 (1%)

H 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 4 (1%)

279 inch es

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American Alaskan sealskins were forwarded to the Belgian

Princess, with whom he (Hoover) is personally acquainted,

having been associated with her family during his relief

work in Belgium."161

Vacations/Personal Travel accounted for Hoover's

second largest concentration of personal coverage.

Hoover's favorite escape was fishing the headwaters of the

Rapidan River in what is now Virginia's Shenandoah National

Park. "Immediately after arriving, the President donned

his fishing clothes and went to the stream," stated a

Post-Dispatch story. The lead of another story read:

"For the first time in a week. President Hoover tonight

dropped the cares of the executive offices for a respite in

the Virginia w o o d s . "1^5

Hoover's third largest category of personal coverage

was from Immediate Family/Homelife Activities. Among the

13 percent of Hoover's personal coverage in this category

was this lead: "Mrs. Herbert Hoover, wife of the President,

will christen the new navy dirigible Akron Aug. 8, by

161st. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Hoovers Send Sealskins to Belgian Princess," 5 January 1930, 1.

162st. Louis Post-Dispatch. "President and Party Reach Fishing Camp," 10 May 1930, 1.

163st. Louis Post-Dispatch. "President Reaches Camp, Relaxes," 5 July 1931, 1.

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opening the door of a cage, releasing white pigeons into

the air.

One of Hoover's smallest categories of personal

coverage was Personal Idiosyncrasies, the closest category

to "personality" stories; in this category's rankings.

Hoover trailed all but two presidents. (See Table 48 in

the Appendix) Hoover also was one of four presidents with

no stories in the Social Life category. (See Table 45 in

the Appendix)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Mrs. Hoover To Christen Navy Dirigible," 9 July 1931, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Franklin Roosevelt

Franklin Roosevelt received the fourth largest

portion of personal coverage. His personal stories

accounted for 16 percent of his total news coverage. (See

Table 23) FDR's personal coverage percentage was higher

than comparable figures for every president except the

first Roosevelt, Wilson, and Harding.

Roosevelt received more personal coverage than any

other middle-period president or any of the eight

presidents who have served after him.

The large amount of personal coverage that FDR

accumulated can be attributed to the same combination

perfected by Teddy Roosevelt: a charismatic personality

and compelling personal life combined with allowing the

press corps liberal access to the White House. Franklin

Roosevelt established an unparalleled record of press

conferences, holding twice as many sessions per year as any

other president in history. FDR also broke new ground in

numerous areas of press-president relations, including

frankness with reporters, designation of the first

presidential press secretary, innovation with radio through

"fireside chats," and expansion of press sources to include

193

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Table 23.— Franklin Roosevelt's Newspaper Coverage

NYTLAT SLP-D AC total

1934 general 922 449 480 774 1934 personal 166 56 84 104 1935 general 962 291 355 462 1935 personal 202 47 40 29

total general 1,883 740 835 1,236 4,694 inches

total personal 368 103 124 133 728 inches

% personal 20 14 15 11 16 percent

Rank: Fourth

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the first lady.

Franklin Roosevelt as a Subject for Personal News

Roosevelt, with a broad smile that seemed to cover

every inch of his face and a cigarette holder jutting

rakishly from between his teeth, was the epitome of "Happy

Days Are Here Again" during a time when the United States

desperately needed happy days. When jaunty, cocky,

self-confident Roosevelt entered the White House during the

dark days of the Great Depression, his personality became

the strongest image of the president's campaign to make the

country know, as he so boldly stated in his inaugural

address: "You have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Roosevelt was ebullient, robust, outgoing, charming,

persuasive, determined, tireless, fearless, and gregarious.

FDR was resourceful and fiercely independent.

It was, perhaps, FDR's physical problems that best

illustrate his character. As a result of a bout with polio

in 1921, when he was 29, he was paralyzed from the waist

down. During the longest presidency in American

history— twelve years and thirty-nine days— he could not

walk a step without braces or crutches. Despite his

paralysis, Roosevelt traveled more than any of his

predecessors and was the first president to fly in an

airplane. He also swam, followed a routine of rigorous

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exercise, wrestled with his sons, and moved around the

house either by crawling on his hands or by moving from

room to room in a homemade wheelchair fashioned from a

kitchen chair. And yet the public did not know of

Roosevelt's valiant struggle against paralysis.

Richard Hofstadter, in The American Political

Tradition and the Men Who Made It. said FDR had been "too

much the child of fortune," attending Groton and Harvard,

until his heroic struggle against infantile paralysis.

Hofstadter quoted Frances Perkins, Roosevelt's Secretary of

Labor, as saying the paralysis led FDR through a "spiritual

transformation" that purged him of "the slightly arrogant

attitude" he previously had s h o w n . 1^5

Part of Roosevelt's appeal was the fact that, despite

wealth and aristocratic background, he had the common

touch. His favorite food was scrambled eggs, and he served

hot dogs to the British king and queen. His favorite

pastime was playing poker. He was the most avid stamp

collector ever to inhabit the White House and never went on

a trip without his stamp albums. Nor would be travel

without Fala, his Scotch terrier. He encouraged people to

write to him, and during certain periods 4,000 letters

arrived daily, wrote historian Wilfred E. Binkley. "Some

^^^Hofstadter, 319.

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of the letters from private citizens were placed in his

bedtime folder and the president read them before going to

sleep."166

No news organization reported Roosevelt's love affair

with his wife's social secretary, Lucy Mercer. FDR began

the affair with the tall, beautiful woman during World War

I when he was on assignment with the Navy in Washington and

his wife and children were summering in Canada. Mrs.

Roosevelt discovered a packet of love letters in 1918 and

threatened divorce, which would have destroyed her

husband's political career. So FDR promised to stop seeing

Miss Mercer, who married a wealthy widower two years later.

Lucy Mercer Rutherford corresponded with FDR and visited

him after she became a widow in 1944. She was with the

president when he died in Warm Springs, Georgia, in 1945,

although she rushed off the premises before Mrs. Roosevelt

arrived.

Eleanor Roosevelt married her fifth cousin once

removed when she was 20 and he was 23. She bore five

children within the next ten years. After FDR was stricken

with polio, Mrs. Roosevelt overcame her innate shyness to

become her husband's legs. She began making public

166 . Binkley, 304.

^^^Walter Scott, "Personality Parade," Parade. 26 July 1987, 2.

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appearances for him and to serve him as a listening post

and barometer of popular sentiment.

Both Roosevelts enjoyed their jobs immensely, never

seeing them as burdens, according to historian Wilfred E. 1 6 8 Binkley. Eleanor Roosevelt redefined the role of first

lady. She climbed into coal mines to inspect their safety

and soared into the sky when she piloted an airplane from

Washington to Chicago to attend the 1940 Democratic

National Convention. She also rode over Boulder Dam in a

bucket and appeared at one news conference in a riding

habit. She refused secret service protection and insisted

upon driving her own car, keeping a pistol in her glove

compartment.

The first lady became involved in such substantive

matters as the National Youth Administration and the Office

of Civilian Defense, becoming the first wife of a president

to testify before Congress. "Eleanor Roosevelt pushed her

husband to expand the recognition of women and blacks, long

the victims of Washington's hostility or indifference,"

observed historian Blum.^^^ And she put black civil

rights above politics, resigning from the Daughters of the

American Revolution because the group banned a black singer

1 6 8 . Binkley, 290. 1 6 9 Blum, 132.

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from one of its functions. After FDR's death, Eleanor

Roosevelt served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

In 1982, history professors rated Eleanor Roosevelt

number one among this century's seventeen first ladies.

Mrs. Roosevelt finished first in nine of the ten

categories— background, value to the country, integrity,

leadership, intelligence, being her "own woman,"

accomplishments, courage, and public image. The historians

ranked her second in the category of value to the

president. Mrs. Roosevelt's total score was 93.3; her

closest competitor followed with 77.5.^^®

Franklin Roosevelt and Press Relations

Roosevelt's relationship with the press began by

soaring to the highest peak in presidential history,

symbolized by the correspondents giving him a standing

ovation at the end of his first press conference. No

president could have sustained that level of press support

through an economic depression and a world war, but FDR

held on to his title of "World's Greatest Managing Editor"

in the minds of most reporters.

Historian Blum wrote:

Journalists, delighted by his frequent and open press conferences, valued his frankness, not the least his off-the-record

1 7 0 Shearer, 8.

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asides, enjoyed his humor and repartee, and as a group supported the New Deal with as much fervor as most of their editors opposed it.171

FDR used the full force of his charisma to command

the genuine love, affection and admiration of reporters.

Roosevelt deserves credit for breaking new ground in

many areas of press-president relations:

— FDR created a tradition of White House press

conferences that remains unmatched. He met the press 998

times during his twelve years, an average of eighty-three

times a year. Annual press conference averages dropped to

forty-two under Truman, twenty-four under Eisenhower,

twenty-two under Kennedy, twenty-five under Johnson, seven

under Nixon, sixteen under Ford, twenty-five under Carter,

and six under Reagan.

— FDR designated the first presidential press

secretary. Stephen Early was a former Associated Press

reporter who had worked as one of the reporters. He was a

valuable adjunct to FDR's press machine. He introduced the

policy of impartiality that replaced the fair-haired-boy

concept of previous administrations. Early was accessible

to reporters, while also helping FDR anticipate questions

and prepare responses.

171 Blum, 135.

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— FDR created the concepts of off-the record

information and background information, as well as

restrictions on direct quotations.

— FDR revolutionized the use of radio through his

very effective fireside chats. "Roosevelt's most important

link with the people was the 'fireside chat,"' James

MacGregor Burns wrote. "Heard in the parlor, they were

fresh, intimate, direct, moving."172

— FDR allowed press-president relations to extend to

the first lady. Eleanor Roosevelt led press conferences

exclusively for female reporters and became the first

president's wife to be a significant source for substantive

news stories.

— FDR became so close to reporters that some of them

wrote his speeches and coining terms such as "Brains 173 Trust."

Reporters had much reason for joy. They received a

constant flow of news, coming to the White House five times

as often during FDR's first term as during the Hoover

years.Between 1930 and 1934, United Press tripled the

James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: Lion and the Fox (New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1956), 205.

l^^Tebbel and Watts, 448.

Thomas A. Bailey, Presidential Greatness (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966), 255.

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number of stories out of Washington. ^^5

The typical FDR press conference, held each Tuesday

and Friday, found 200 reporters jammed into the Oval

Office, pushed right up to the edge of the president's

desk. FDR sat with his cigarette in its holder and his

eyes playfully scanning the crowd. Animated, he often

threw back his head, puffed out his cheeks, pursed his

lips, and laughed loudly as he ran through the rapid-fire . 176 questioning.

Burns, in Roosevelt; Lion and the Fox, described

FDR's effectiveness in "working the audience" at a press

conference. His description sounds more like that of an

actor than of a provider of information.

Roosevelt's features expressed amazement, curiosity, mock alarm, genuine interest, worry, rhetorical playing for suspense, sympathy, derision, playfulness, dignity, and surpassing charm. And when the reporters roared at Roosevelt's remarks, he was clearly pleased at this audience response; after one such burst of laughter, the President took a sort of bow with a tilt of his huge head.177

Franklin Roosevelt's Personal Coverage

Stories in the Personal Idiosyncrasies category

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal (Boston; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1959), 562.

176lbid., 560.

^^^Burns, 265.

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Table 24.— Categories of Franklin Roosevelt's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1934 1935 1934 1935 1934 1935 1934 1935 T o ta l

A 34 0 14 2 30 23 2 7 112 (15%)

B 0 78 IG 5 28 26 19 7 173 (24%)

C 0 0 0 4 0 0 G G 4

D 0 G 7 3 G 45 0 1 56 (8%)

E 22 53 0 24 G 3 0 G 102 (14%)

F 80 71 19 7 26 10 14 14 241 (33%)

G 30 G 6 2 G 2 0 0 40 (5%)

H 0 G 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

728 in c h e s

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accounted for 33 percent of Roosevelt's personal coverage.

(See Table 24) These stories provided glimpses into

Roosevelt's intriguing personality. FDR's Personal

Idiosyncrasies percentage was the third highest of any

twentieth-century president— behind only Johnson's 43

percent and Truman's 37 percent. (See Table 48 in the

Appendix)

To capture the FDR personality, reporters followed

the president while pursuing recreational activities,

especially his fishing. Typical was a Los Angeles Times

story under the headline: "President's Thirty-Five Pound

Barracuda First Catch of Vacation Trip." Roosevelt was

headed toward the Bahamas aboard the cruiser Houston. The

story read:

President Roosevelt observed Independence Day by catching "the grand-daddy of all barracudas" today while bounding in a small gig in the open sea. . . . Garbed in a blue sweater and white trousers, Mr. Roosevelt was accompanied in the gig by his two sons .... On board the carrier the men engaged in holiday games and at noon a special "chow" was s e r v e d . 178

It is remarkable that Roosevelt's personal coverage

included many stories about his health but contained no

mention of his paralysis. Instead, the stories told of the

president working despite a slight cold or his driving

178 Los Angeles Times. "President's Thirty-Five Pound Barracuda First Catch of Vacation Trip," 5 July 1934, 1.

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through rain to cast his ballot on election day.

Some stories were about the president's pride in his

use of the English language. Roosevelt's grammar sometimes

made him vulnerable to criticism. The Post-Dispatch. for

example, carried a story suggesting that Roosevelt

1 7 9 mispronounced the word "government."

FDR gained his second largest concentration of

personal coverage through Immediate Family/Homelife

Activities. His 24 percent in this category was the fifth

highest figure among twentieth century presidents. (See

Table 44 in the Appendix) Many of the stories described

Eleanor Roosevelt's speeches, activities, and international

travel. One curious story ran under the headline: "Mrs.

Roosevelt: Women Not Ready for Presidency." Close

reading of the story, however, shows the progressive first

lady actually said the country was not ready for a female

president. Mrs. Roosevelt said:

"I do not think we have yet reached the point where the majority of our people would feel satisfied to follow the judgement of a woman as President. . . Some day, a woman may be President, but I hope it will not be while we still speak of 'a woman's vote.'"180

179 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "FDR Mispronounces 'Government,' Writer Says," 10 November 1934, 1. 1 8 0 St. Louis Post-Disoatch. "Mrs. Roosevelt: Women Not Ready for Presidency," 5 November 1934, 1.

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Most remarkable about the Immediate Family/Homelife

Activities coverage is the fact that no story hinted at

Roosevelt's 20-year affair with Lucy Mercer Rutherford.

FDR's third largest category was Vacations/Personal

Travel. The 15 percent figure was created by Roosevelt's

penchant for traveling to Florida, Puerto Rico, and Haiti

by steam cruiser. The Post-Disoatch said:

Seasickness casualties were high on board the destroyer Gilmer, carrying newspaper men. . . . But those aboard declined an offer by the President to slacken the pace. . . . He joshed the inland men about some of the non-nautical terms in their stories.181

181 St. Louis Post-Disoatch. "President's Cruiser Runs into Heavy Seas," 3 July 1934.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Harry Truman

Harry Truman received the seventh largest percentage

of personal coverage. His personal stories accounted for

12 percent of his news coverage. (See Table 25) Truman

fits well among the middle-period presidents because he

ranked near the center of the fifteen presidents studied.

Six presidents had more personal coverage; eight had less.

According to regression analysis, Truman received 7 percent

less personal coverage than "expected" for a president

serving when he did.

Truman's position near the center of the presidents

is the result of a conflict between two elements. Truman

had a compelling personality that the press could have

translated into personal news; the newsworthiness of

Truman's personality is shown by the fact that he received

more Personal Idiosyncrasies coverage (37 percent) than

thirteen of the fourteen other presidents. (See Table 48

in the Appendix) But Truman hated and distrusted the press

so vehemently that he severely limited reporter access to

him and to his personal life.

Harry Truman as a Subject for Personal News

According to journalistic criteria, Truman was an

207

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Table 25.— Harry Truman's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC total

1946 general 983 317 786 378 1946 personal 59 19 179 0 1947 general 983 428 875 365 1947 personal 148 52 138 37

total general 1,966 745 1,661 743 5,114 inches

total personal 207 71 317 37 632 inches

% personal 11 10 19 5 12 percent

Rank: Seventh

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excellent subject for personal news stories. His was the

life of Horatio Alger. Born to lower-middle-class parents

in a small Missouri town, the little boy was prevented from

rough-housing with other boys because of the spectacles he

wore. So he turned to reading. At 17, he began working in

the mailroom of the Kansas City Star. He worked his way to

progressively responsible jobs— keeping time for the Santa

Fe Railroad, counting out money as a bank teller, helping

his dad with the family farm, running a haberdashery.

Although Truman never earned a bachelor's degree, he

worked his way through law school and served as a county

judge. He then entered politics, climbing from the U.S.

Senate to the vice presidency. Upon FDR's death, Truman

became the only Missourian ever to ascend to the

presidency, and then he overcame tremendous odds to win the

presidency in his own right.

Despite Truman's accomplishments, bragging was

anathema to him. He remained plain, simple, humble, and

down-to-earth. "He was the type of person that you just

felt so at ease when you met him," Richard Lawrence Miller

wrote in his biography, Truman; the Missouri Heritage. "He 1 09 was so down-to-earth. " Truman expressed his simple

^^^Richard Lawrence Miller, Truman: the Missouri Heritage (New York: Random House, 1986), 65.

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ways, for example, in the homilies he was forever spouting,

such as: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the

kitchen." And yet he also was, when necessary, confident

and decisive: "The buck stops here."

Truman was earnest, incorruptable, and spunky. His

temper was explosive and his language salty, marked by an

occasional "hell," "damn," and "s.o.b." The chief critic

of Truman's language was Bess, his childhood sweetheart and

devoted wife. They married while in their mid 30s and had

their only daughter five years later. Truman supported his

daughter's musical career, encouraging her to climb above

her father's humble beginnings.

Truman's shoot-from-the-hip remarks and letters

dashed off in the heat of anger added to his down-home

image. These elements gave Truman the "warts" that

journalists love because they turn a newsmaker into a

multi-dimensional personality. It was only human, for

example, for an old army artilleryman like Truman to say of

the U.S. Marines: "They have a propaganda machine that is 183 almost equal to Stalin's." It also was only human for

the president, after a tussle with labor leader John L.

Jonathan Daniels, "How Truman Writes Those Letters," collier's. 24 February 1951, 15.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 Ig A Lewis, to say he would not appoint Lewis "dogcatcher."

And when a music critic roasted Truman's daughter after a

vocal recital, it was only proper for the father to

write— in longhand— the hottest letter of his career. The

angry father wrote:

"I have just read your lousy review buried in the back pages. You sound like a frustrated old man who never made a success. I never met you, but if I do you'll need a new nose and a supporter b e l o w . " 1 8 5

In a 1959 interview, Truman assessed his place in

presidential history with characteristic modesty. "I

wasn't one of the great Presidents, but I had a good time

trying to be one."

Bess Truman did not take an active role in politics,

discontinuing the women's press conferences Eleanor

Roosevelt had introduced. Historians ranking this

century's seventeen first ladies rated Mrs. Truman ninth.

Her highest rankings were fourth (in integrity) and sixth

(in her value to the president), while her lowest ranking

was sixteenth (in background) .^87

185 Merle Miller, Plain Speaking (New York: Berkley Publishing Corp., 1974), 88. 1 8 6 Samuel Gallu, ed.. Give 'Em Hell. Harrv (New York: Viking Press, 1975), 17. 187^ Shearer, 8.

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First Daughter Margaret Truman launched a singing

career while her father was in the White House, performing

on Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town."

Harry Truman's Press Relations

Truman hated the press with a corrosive passion. His

animus toward the press, which is unmatched by any other

president's feelings, was so strong that his press

relations were always negative. He never had sufficient

respect for the press to take his press relations beyond

the basic steps he thought were the duties of his office.

Truman, a man of deep conviction and unwaivering

principle, believed that reporters were totally controlled

by newspaper owners. Biographer Herbert Lee Williams wrote

that Truman felt nothing but disdain for the owners,

publishers, editorial writers, and columnists who set a

paper's editorial direction.

During tirades against the press. Truman said,

"Press people are just as guilty of sabotaging the news as

Pravda and Izvestia in R u s s i a . "189 Truman referred to

radio newsmen as "lying air commentators" and said

newspaper columnists tried "to prostitute the minds of the

X88 Herbert Lee Williams, The Newspaperman's President (Chicago; Nelson-Hall Inc., 1984), 199.

1 8 9 Tebbel and Watts, 462.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213 1 9 0 voters." Referring to Drew Pearson, David Lawrence,

and Walter Winchell, he said, "They are all liars and

1 9 1 intellectually dishonest." Truman often changed

1 9 2 Winchell's last name to "Winchellski," and he once

told Henry Luce, founder of Time magazine: "Mr. Luce, a

man like you must have trouble sleeping at night. Because

your job is to inform people, but what you do is misinform

them." 193

Upon taking office, Truman said he would continue

most of FDR's press practices. But when Truman began the

twice-a-week sessions with the press, he found them to be

strained and hostile. So he reduced the meetings to once a

week. And then when he tried to use radio to speak

directly to the public, he discovered that he lacked

Roosevelt's human touch and that his dry Missouri voice did

not match Roosevelt's golden oratory.1^^ So he also

pulled back from giving frequent radio talks.

Nor did Truman understand how to use the press

"«Ibid. "iibid. 1 9 2 Ibid., 4 6 1 "«Ibid.

William E. Leuchtenberg, In the Shadow of FDR: from Harrv Truman to Ronald Reacran (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press), 4 .

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conference. He made the mistake of recognizing every

reporter and insisting upon answering every question. The

sessions were exercises in defense, rather than a means of

educating the public about his policies and practices. Even

so, Truman did not hide from reporters. He faced them in

347 press conferences.^^^ That average was considerably

higher than the figure for most twentieth century

presidents.

Truman contributed nothing to the evolution of

press-president relations. "He did not change the press

relationship in any significant way," Tebbel and Watts

said. "No new ground was broken."196

Harry Truman's Personal Coverage

Harry Truman received three times as much coverage in

the Personal Idiosyncrasies category as in any of the other

seven personal coverage categories. (See Table 26)

Truman's 37 percent Personal Idiosyncrasies figure was

second only to Lyndon Johnson's 43 percent. (See Table 48

in the Appendix) Because this category is the closest to

presidential "personality," Truman's high figure indicates

the press found him to be one of the most interesting

personalities to reside in the White House.

195 Williams, 324. 196 Tebbel and Watts, 464.

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Table 26.— Categories of Harry Truman's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1946 1947 1946 1947 1946 1947 1946 1947 Total

A 0 28 3 10 7 0 0 10 58 (9%)

B 0 0 0 8 26 25 0 18 77 (12%)

C 0 0 0 0 3 12 0 0 15 (2%)

D 0 0 3 0 48 24 0 0 75 (12%)

E 19 11 2 0 21 16 0 0 69 (11%)

F 19 63 9 14 33 96 0 0 234 (37%)

G 21 28 2 0 0 0 0 9 60 (9%)

H 0 18 0 20 0 6 0 0 44 (7%)

632 inches

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Many stories described the plain speaking that was

part of Truman's down-to-earth style. A New York Times

story began:

President Truman warned the states today that they could not expect the federal government to stand by idly while "nuts" and "morons and crazy people" were driving cars and contributing in large degree to the mounting death and injury tolls on the highways.197

The story said Truman spoke "with an angry glint

in his eyes and gesticulating to emphasize his words."

Ironically, another Personal Idiosyncrasies story

described Truman's own speeding as he drove his black

convertible back to Washington after a weekend visit to

Charlottesville. "He had maintained a pace of from 50 to

55 miles most of the way although he occasionally touched

as high as 65," according to the Post-Disnatch story. "The

Virginia speed limit on the open highway is 50 miles an

hour."198

Immediate Family/Homelife Activities ranked as

Truman's second highest category, accounting for 12 percent

of his personal coverage. The main topic was Margaret

Truman's singing career. She made her radio debut from

19?The New York Times. "President Decries 'Nuts' Driving Cars," 9 May 1946.

198gt. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Truman Drives Car 117 Miles in 2 Hours," 7 July 1947, l.

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Detroit on ABC's "Sunday Evening Hour" and her concert

debut in Pittsburgh. "Miss Truman, 23 years old, is the

first child of a President of the United States to seek a 1 QQ professional career," according to the Post-Dispatch.

Another article stressed that the first daughter had

decided to seek a singing career long before her father

became president and that she had turned down offers to

star in motion pictures.^00

Interaction with "Little People" also provided Truman

with 12 percent of his personal coverage, more than every

presidents except Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, and

Dwight Eisenhower. (See Table 46 in the Appendix) Typical

was a Post-Dispatch story about Truman chatting with the

crowd who came to see him during a fifteen-minute train

stop in St. Louis. The story said:

Truman stepped to the brass rail of the observation platform and smiled at the crowd, which formed a horseshoe-shaped mass around the end of the train. He was dressed in a powder blue, double-breasted suit, white shirt and blue tie, with a matching handkerchief pointing out of his breast pocket. Shouts of "Hi, Harry," and "Hello, Harry," came from the p e o p l e . 201

199 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Margaret Truman To Make Concert Debut," 8 May 1947, 1.

Louis Post-Dispatch. "Margaret Truman To Debut as Singer," 6 March 1947, 1. 201 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Churchill and Truman in Fulton Parade," 5 March 1946, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dwight Eisenhower

Dwight Eisenhower ranks fourteenth in the percentage

of personal coverage received. His personal coverage

accounted for only 7 percent of his total coverage, (See

Table 27) less than one-seventh of Teddy Roosevelt's

figure. Nixon was the only president who received less

personal coverage than Eisenhower.

Eisenhower actually fits better in the recent period,

which began immediately after he left office. He attracted

fewer personal stories than any other middle-period

president, and regression analysis shows that he received

10 percent less personal coverage than "expected" for a

president serving when he did. Like recent presidents,

Eisenhower possessed neither a newsworthy personality or

personal life nor a record of liberal access to the press.

Dwight Eisenhower as a Subject for Personal News

Though Ike rose to the highest military and political

ranks, he insisted: "I'm just folks. I come from the 202 people, the ordinary people." Historians such as

Jules Archer consider Ike the least pretentious man ever

^^^Jules Archer, Battlefield President: Dwight D. Eisenhower (New York: J. Messner, 1967), 11.

218

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Table 27.— Dwight Eisenhower's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC total

1954 general 1,195 360 594 483 1954 personal 111 54 37 34 1955 general 1,259 646 513 619 1955 personal 34 40 50 40

total general 2,454 1,006 1,107 1,102 5,669 inches

total personal 145 94 87 74 400 inches

% personal 6 9 8 7 7 percent

Rank: Fourteenth

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to serve as president.

Such down-home style was attractive to American

voters still feeling the pain of a world war and with the

evil of communism threatening to carry them into yet

another major war, but this style did not provide news

reporters with a plethora of personal stories. Nor did

reporters find a wealth of personal stories in the other

characteristics that described the grandfatherly

Eisenhower: affable, easy-going, decent, honorable,

optimistic. Nor did compelling possibilities arise from

the 62-year-old president's hobbies: golfing, fly fishing,

landscape painting. Even less was the potential

newsworthiness of his family: a wife who shunned public

appearances because a disease of the inner ear made her

unsteady on her feet and a non-descript 30-year-old son. In

short, the Eisenhower White House was virtually devoid of

personal news.

The only interesting details of Ike's personal life

did not reach newsprint during his lifetime because they

were kept under tight presidential wraps. The affair with

wartime chauffeur Kay Summersby was not exposed until long

after Eisenhower's death.

Mamie Doud Eisenhower served as a gracious hostess

but carefully guarded her privacy, partially because the

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unsteadiness caused by Meniere's disease led to rumors that

she had a drinking problem. When history professors ranked

this century's seventeen first ladies, Mrs. Eisenhower

finished twelfth. Her lowest ratings were in intelligence

(seventeenth), being her own woman (sixteenth), leadership

(fifteenth), and accomplishments (fourteenth). The popular

first lady's highest rating was in public image ( s i x t h ) .^93

First Son John Doud, an author, was not the subject

of news coverage. Presidential grandchildren— especially

David Eisenhower— sometimes gained the limelight.

Dwight Eisenhower's Press Relations

Eisenhower had little interest in or aptitude for

dealing with the press, and he would have much preferred

spending his final years on the golf course rather than

holding press conferences.

When Eisenhower entered the presidency, he was

totally opposed to holding press conferences or having

regular contact with reporters. Aides convinced the former

general that some sessions were a presidential duty, but

Eisenhower held only half as many press conferences as

Truman and less than a fourth as many as FDR.

During meetings with the press, Eisenhower got down

to business immediately because he wanted to get the

^9%hearer, 8.

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sessions over with as soon as possible. Ike clearly did

not enjoy press conferences, and he certainly was not

interested in bantering with the press corps or becoming

intimate with individual reporters. Eisenhower was never

convinced that his responsibilities to the press extended

into his unofficial life. Informal contact with reporters

was rare.

But Eisenhower was nothing if not an excellent

general. Trained to delegate responsibility to a good

staff, Eisenhower turned over press relations to James C.

Hagerty, even insisting that the press secretary handle all

press inquiries that came to Cabinet members.

Hagerty, once a New York Times reporter, holds the

record for serving as White House press secretary longer

than any other man, for developing a closer relationship

with the president than any other press secretary, and for

helping make more presidential policy decisions than any

other press secretary.

Hagerty was responsible for many contributions to

press-president relations, including the televising of

White House news conferences, increasing the use of direct

quotations from the president, and having a press secretary

virtually speak for the president.

Regarding personal coverage, Eisenhower refused to

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open his vacations or private life to reporters. Hagerty

attempted to compensate for this refusal and to keep the

Eisenhower name in the press by writing White House press

releases about the president's personal activities either

before they occurred or after they were completed.

Hagerty also set a precedent in personal coverage

after Eisenhower's heart attack in 1955. Wilson and other

presidents had been ill in office, but not until

Eisenhower's illness did the press and the public begin to

expect detailed coverage of the president's health.

Hagerty led four press briefings a day throughout the seven 204 weeks Eisenhower was in the hospital.

Columnist Marquis Childs, in the book Eisenhower;

Captive Hero, labeled Ike's heart attack a watershed event

in presidential personal news. Childs said:

The details poured out as the public was told not merely of the President's respiratory rate and his pulse and heartbeat, but of his meals, his intestinal tone, and every aspect of his digestive processes. . . . in keeping with the intensely personal character of American journalism, this fed and whetted the appetite of reporters.205

Reporters were kept apprised of every change in Ike's

condition, ushering in a new era of presidential health

^^S?ebbel and Watts, 473.

205j^arquis Childs, Eisenhower; Captive Hero (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1958), 221.

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coverage.

Dwight Eisenhower's Personal Coverage

Eisenhower received his largest concentration of

personal coverage in the Vacations/Personal Travel

category. Stories in this category accounted for 23

percent of his personal coverage. (See Table 28)

Eisenhower's figure in this category ranked behind only

Harding's 72 percent, Taft's 53 percent, and Coolidge's 50

percent. (See Table 43 in the Appendix) The fact that

Eisenhower's vacation figure placed him immediately behind

the three do-nothing presidents leads to the observation

that vacations also provided reporters with a major source

of personal news about the classic "drifting" presidency.

Ike liked to escape Washington social activities by

spending his weekends at his Catoctin Mountain Lodge in

Maryland. "The President and Mrs. Eisenhower arrived

yesterday afternoon at Camp David, presidential retreat

named for their grandson. They drove from Washington 80

miles south of h e r e , according to a Post-Dispatch

story. During the weekend trips, Ike spent as much

time as possible on the golf course. The Post-Dispatch

story continued:

^9-^St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "President Rests at Mountain Lodge," 13 March 1954, 1.

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Table 28.— Categories of Dwight Eisenhower's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1954 1955 1954 1955 1954 1955 1954 1955 T o ta l

A 46 0 G 3 7 12 22 G 90 (23%)

B 17 0 3G 11 3 9 G G 7G (18%)

C 0 G G G G 4 G 0 4 (1%)

D 21 0 G 12 G 3 12 13 61 (15%)

E 0 34 G G 4 G G 27 65 (16%)

F 0 0 24 7 23 22 G G 76 (19%)

G 27 0 G 7 G G G G 34 (9%)

H G 0 G 0 GG G G G

400 in c h e s

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The President hoped to get in a round of golf today but the weather dimmed the prospects. . . . The Catoctin Mountains were covered with a light snow, and the greens on the golf course where Eisenhower usually plays were crusted with i c e . 2 0 7

Many vacation stories were based on announcements

obviously distributed by James Hagerty. Typical was an

announcement that Ike would go duck hunting on Lake Erie 2 0 8 the next weekend.

The 19 percent of Eisenhower's personal coverage

devoted to his Personal Idiosyncrasies constituted the

second largest category. Stories often emphasized Ike's

enjoyment of simple pleasures. "President Eisenhower let

it out today— he has been cooking steaks on a portable

charcoal broiler on the top floor of the White House,"

according to one lead. "He has an apron and a chef's hat

he d o n s . "209

Immediate Family/Homelife Activities created

Eisenhower's third largest category. The 18 percent figure

was created mostly by brief stories about Mamie

Eisenhower's social activities. One four-inch story told

2 0 7 I b i d .

2 0 8 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "President to Hunt Ducks on Lake Erie," 9 November 1954, 1.

2 0 9 l o s Angeles Times. "Eisenhower Cooks in White House," 10 March 1954, 1.

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of the first lady entertaining Britain's Queen Mother

Elizabeth.

The two women made an unscheduled stop at a drugstore in the basement of the Pentagon when the Queen Mother expressed interest in the gaily decorated windows. The store, closed for Saturday, was unlocked and the two women wandered around expressing delight over the array of goods on the shelves inside .2 1 0

Such stories generally were based on brief

announcements from the White House.

Fifteen percent of Eisenhower's personal coverage was

through Interaction with "Little People," ranking him third

among the presidents in this category (See Table 46 in the

Appendix); these stories also usually were based on White

House announcements. In addition, Ike also received a

relatively high percentage of coverage through

participating in Ceremonial Events; he ranked third in this

category. (See Table 49 in the Appendix)

21Qst. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Mrs. Eisenhower, Queen Mother Tour Drugstore," 7 November, 1954, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VI

RECENT PRESIDENTS

The recent period of study in this research project

is composed of the presidencies of six men. These

presidencies represent seven administrations— one-third of

the twenty-one administrations for which news coverage was

examined. Recent-period presidents are John Kennedy,

Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter,

and Ronald Reagan.

In keeping with the central purpose of this study,

these six presidencies must be considered in terms of how

they help to form a pattern of personal news coverage from

the White House. The most effective way to consider their

contribution to such a pattern is to focus on the composite

personal coverage statistics for these six men compared

with the comparable statistics for early-period and

middle-period presidents. With regard to the amount of

personal coverage included in their total coverage, the

recent-period presidents ranked as follows:

Kennedy, s ixth;

Johnson, eighth;

228

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Nixon, fifteenth;

Ford, twelfth;

Carter, eleventh; and

Reagan, ninth.

The "average" recent president, therefore, ranked

tenth among the fifteen presidents. Comparable figures for

early-period and middle-period presidents were fourth and

eighth, respectively.

With regard to the proportion of personal coverage

included in their total coverage, the recent-period

presidents had the following percentages:

Kennedy, 14 percent;

Johnson, 12 percent;

Nixon, 5 percent;

Ford, 9 percent;

Carter, 10 percent; and

Reagan, 11 percent.

Therefore, personal coverage provided the "average"

recent president with 1 0 percent of his total coverage.

Comparable figures for early-period and middle-period

presidents were 25 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

According to both rankings and percentages,

recent-period presidents received less personal coverage

than early-period presidents or middle-period presidents.

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Statistics for recent-period presidents, therefore, confirm

the trend toward less personal news coverage from the White

House.

The remaining portion of this chapter consists of six

major sections devoted to the six recent-period presidents.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. John Kennedy

John Kennedy ranks sixth among the fifteen presidents

with regard to personal coverage. Personal news accounted

for 14 percent of his total coverage. (See Table 29) He

received a larger percentage of personal coverage than all

twentieth-century presidents except the two Roosevelts,

Wilson, Harding, and Coolidge.

Kennedy's percentage of personal coverage may be

deceivingly low. For Kennedy actually attracted more

personal news than any other president— even more than

Teddy Roosevelt. Kennedy's percentage was not huge,

however, because it was based on the huge amount of general

news coverage he received.

Kennedy received 46 percent more general news

coverage than Eisenhower, who preceded him, and 55 percent

more than Johnson, who followed him. Even more dramatic

figures result from comparing Kennedy's personal coverage

to that of the men before and after him. Kennedy attracted

1,160 column inches of personal coverage— more than

Eisenhower (400) and Johnson (646) combined.

Although Kennedy's percentage figure is deceivingly

low, he still received the highest personal coverage

231

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Table 29.— John Kennedy's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC total

1962 general 1,729 1,311 1,031 846 1962 personal 337 135 179 134 1963 general 1,161 852 796 541 1963 personal 136 40 183 16

total general 2,890 2,163 1,827 1,387 8,267 inches

total personal 473 175 362 150 1,160 inches

% personal 16 8 2 0 1 1 14 percent

Rank; Sixth

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percentage of any recent-period president. It could be

argued that Kennedy would fit better in the middle-period,

which ended just before he entered office.

The large size of Kennedy's personal coverage is a

result of the same two elements that resulted in the

Roosevelts receiving large quantities of personal coverage:

a dynamic personality and compelling personal life combined

with open access to the press. Kennedy expanded

presidential access by allowing live televising of press

conferences and by instituting twice-a-day briefings for

reporters. Increased access to the president's personal

life was illustrated when First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy led

a television audience on the first public tour of the White

House living quarters.

John Kennedy as a Subject of Personal News

If this country's forty presidents were ranked

according to their amount of sex appeal, JFK would take

first place. Handsome, well-built, and virile, the wealthy

Navy hero was only 43 when he entered the White House,

making him the youngest man ever elected president. (Teddy

Roosevelt, who was a few months younger than Kennedy when

he became president, succeeded to the office upon the death

of William McKinley.)

Many historians have discussed Kennedy's virility and

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strong sex drive, which led to extramarital activities.

William H. Chafe wrote in The Unfinished Journev;

Even as president, he carried on an affair— in the White House— with a woman who had formerly been a mistress to Frank Sinatra, and who continued to be intimate with leaders of organized crime. . . The values of a sexual conquest were increased by the fame of his partner or the brazenness of the circumstances.2 1 1

In considering Kennedy's newsworthy characteristics,

it is essential to place the new president in context.

Eisenhower was 70 years old when he left the presidency,

and his wife, Mamie, was 64. The White House press corps

and the American people welcomed a young, vital president

to give them a symbol of life and to give them new, active

leadership after eight years of drifting along with an

aging president. Chafe pointed out that Kennedy brought to

Washington a conviction that "the best and brightest" of

the younger generation were now in charge. Chafe wrote;

Trained at Ivy League schools, veterans of World War II or Korea, these were the cream of the crop, people who were both hard-nosed and brilliant— capable of solving any problem and infused with confidence that they had a special mission at a decisive moment in history . 2 1 2

^^\filliam H. Chafe, The Unfinished Journev; America Since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 180-81. 212 Ibid., 189.

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Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic president, was

accompanied by his beautiful and cultured wife Jacqueline

Bouvier Kennedy, who was only 31, and two young children,

3-year-old Caroline and 3-month-old John John. In

addition, the Kennedy clan included all variety of

interesting personalities who were fast building an

American dynasty in business and politics.

Kennedy was an American hero in his own right. As a

young Naval officer, he saved the life of a fellow crewman

on a PT boat. Kennedy's heroism later became the subject

of a popular song. Kennedy won fame in a very different

arena when he won a Pulitzer Prize for his book. Profiles

in Couracre.

Kennedy was bright, curious, and charming, with a

storehouse of grace and wit that made him an immensely

popular president. Kennedy's creation of the Peace Corps

and emphasis on physical fitness further endeared him to

the American people. Although he appreciated the arts,

Kennedy also enjoyed such down-to-earth activities as

golfing, playing touch football, swimming, and sailing.

His favorite movies were Westerns, and the First Family

spent weekends on a farm in Virginia.

The president and first lady both fostered public

interest in literature and the arts. Robert Frost read

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poetry at JFK's inauguration, Shakespearean theater was

performed at the White House, and the Mona Lisa toured the

United States.

Jacqueline Kennedy, who also came from a background

of wealth and refinement but had worked as the "inquiring

camera girl" for a Washington newspaper, became a very

popular first lady. She used her background and degree

from Vassar College to redecorate the White House with

antique furnishings. A tape of her televised tour of the

White House in 1962 remains one of the most popular

attractions at the National Archives. She arranged for

entertainers to perform at the White House, and her "Jackie

look" hairdo and stylish wardrobe raised the first lady's

influence on society to a new height. She also "wowed"

foreign hosts with her fluent French and Spanish.

In 1982, when history professors ranked this

century's first ladies, Mrs. Kennedy finished sixth. In

individual categories, she ranked second in public image

and second in background. Her lowest category was

integrity, in which she ranked at the very bottom of the 2 1 3 seventeen women.

John Kennedy's Press Relations

The best testimony to Kennedy's excellent

2 1 3 Shearer, 8 .

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relationship with the press is the fact that reporters

never published even a hint of his extramarital sexual

activities until well after his death. Members of the

White House press corps exercised considerable restraint

despite the compelling nature of the material available to

them.

For the first time in American journalism history,

White House reporters had the opportunity to respond to a

widely acknowledged reality in the news business: sex

sells. Among themselves, the reporters spoke freely of

Kennedy's sexual exploits, but even the most critical

columnists kept the information out of print. Regarding

Kennedy, press-president scholars John Tebbel and Sarah

Miles Watts wrote:

Camelot's towers were unsullied. . . . Reporters who came up from Washington on weekends when the president was spending happy evenings at the Hotel Carlyle simply took a night or two off in New York, knowing where he was and making only cursory checks to see that he had not slipped off somewhere else, which would not have been impossible.214

Tebbel and Watts, like other presidential scholars,

generally attributed the reporters' decision not to write

about Kennedy's extramarital sexual activities to the

president's positive relations with reporters. They wrote:

214Tebbel and Watts, 483

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Kennedy escaped a great deal of censure and much more possibly damaging exposure of sins . . . because he was . . . one of the boys. He could talk shop with them, knew many of them socially, and enjoyed being with them. 215

There were many reasons for Kennedy's popularity with

reporters. Because he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author

and had spent a year as a journalist, he respected the

reporters and their profession. He gave many individual

interviews and allowed reporters to talk freely with key

members of his team, which Eisenhower had not. Also unlike

his precedessors, Kennedy read the reporters' stories. He

read a dozen daily newspapers and at least as many monthly

magazines. Time magazine's Hugh Sidey wrote:

For years correspondents who wrote about the president had felt they might be writing in a vacuum for all the reaction their words provoked. . . . But Kennedy changed all this. Every word, every phrase was a b s o r b e d . 216

Reporters also appreciated the many contributions

Kennedy made to the evolving press-president relationship.

Kennedy allowed the first live broadcast of a White House

press conference on January 25, 1961, only five days after

he took office. He also gave TV reporters professional

status, including them in pools on presidential trips and

granting them an unprecedented level of professional

^l^ibid.

Zl^ibid., 484.

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respect.

Kennedy's selection of Pierre Salinger to be his

press secretary also was a major boost to his press

relations. From the reporters' point of view, Salinger was

a good press secretary because he had a journalistic

background as well as easy access to the president, seeing

him half a dozen times a day. The press secretary

instituted twice-a-day press briefings led by himself or

one of his assistants.

Kennedy was remarkably successful at leading press

conferences. His charisma sent across the air waves did

more to promote his image than any number of the old press

conferences. Kennedy was blessed with intelligence, quick

recall of detail, wittiness, and a personality that allowed

him to dominate press conferences and make a vivid

impression on the American people.

Kennedy's social contacts with editors, publishers,

and reporters outnumbered those of any other president.

When a reporter became a Kennedy favorite, he or she was

given family status. Invitations to spend the weekend with

the family in Newport were doled out to reporters earning

rewards.

John Kennedy's Personal Coverage

Kennedy's largest category of personal coverage was

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Table 30.— Categories of John Kennedy's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1962 1963 1962 1963 1962 1963 1962 1963 Total

A 42 28 52 12 55 12 16 16 233 (2 0 %)

B 243 0 31 0 74 39 56 0 443 (38%)

C 0 2 0 31 0 0 0 0 0 40 (3%)

D 0 0 39 0 6 20 0 0 65 (6 %)

E 0 49 0 0 0 16 23 0 88 (8 %)

F 0 14 0 8 5 47 0 0 74 (6 %)

G 27 0 3 0 0 15 0 0 45 (4%)

H 25 25 10 0 39 17 56 0 172 (15%)

1,160 inches

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Immediate Family/Komelife Activities, which accounted for

38 percent of his personal coverage. (See Table 42)

Kennedy's 443 column inches of coverage in this category

was the largest of any twentieth-century president,

although Wilson's 389 column inches created a higher

percentage. (See Table 44 in the Appendix).

Much of the coverage focused on Jacqueline

Kennedy. One story told of a French baron offering the

beautiful first lady a rose cut in a semi-precious stone 217 called rebellite. Perhaps the most bizarre story

described attempts to determine the first lady's shoe size.

"How big are Jacqueline Kennedy's feet?" asked one

headline. The issue raised its ugly head when Air India

offered to make Mrs. Kennedy fourteen pairs of slippers for

her to wear during a New Delhi-to-Rome flight. When the

airline asked the White House for the correct shoe size,

the response was "10 double A," an unusually large size for

a woman. "I won't tell you how big they are," the first

lady's social secretary said during the heat of the

controversy, "but you may say 10 double A is inaccurate.

Young children have the capacity to steal the show on

217gt. Louis Post-Disoatch. "Baron Offers Rose to Mrs. Kennedy," 5 March 1962, 1.

218st. Louis Post-Disoatch. "Mrs. Kennedy's Shoe Size Secret," 10 March 1962, 1 .

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a theater stage, and young Caroline and John John

transferred this talent to the newspaper page. Typical was

a three-column Associated Press photograph of Caroline,

dressed in white stockings and wool skull cap, running

2 1 9 after her terrier on a runway at Andrews Air Force Base.

Kennedy's second largest portion of personal coverage

was in the Vacations/Personal Travel category, which

accounted for 20 percent of his personal coverage. Cape

Cod, Newport and Palm Beach ranked as favorite weekend

retreats for the Kennedys— and the Kennedy-hungry press. A

typical story in the Post-Disoatch began, "President

Kennedy relaxed today in a new summer White House on

secluded Squaw Island, with boating on Nantucket sound and

reunions with members of his family in store for his first

visit to Cape Cod this summer."220

The third largest category of Kennedy stories focused

on the president's Extended Family. Kennedy's 15 percent

figure ranked second only to Carter's 29 percent. (See

Table 50 in the Appendix) Kennedy telephoned his father

every day, and members of the Kennedy clan became familiar

to the American public. Robert Kennedy falling from water

2 1 9 St. Louis Post-Disoatch. "Romp for Caroline and Terrier," 9 January 1963, 1.

220St. Louis Post-Disoatch. "Kennedy Relaxes with Family," 7 July 1962, 1.

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skis, for example, covered seventeen column inches on the

front page of the Post-Disoatch. even though the incident

did not even shorten RFK's two-hour outing aboard the

family yacht. Coverage included a United Press

International photo from Hyannisport and a story with full

details of RFK's fall. "His wife, Ethel, had just given a

graceful display of gliding along the water of Nantucket 221 Sound," the story said.

Social Life during the Kennedy years also created a

significant concentration of personal news; Kennedy's 3

percent figure ranked him fourth among the presidents in

this category. (See Table 45 in the Appendix)

221 St. Louis Post-Disoatch. "Robert Kennedy Falls from Water Skis," 8 July 1962, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Lyndon Johnson

Lyndon Johnson received the eighth largest percentage

of personal coverage. His personal stories accounted for

12 percent of his coverage. (See Table 31) Johnson is at

the exact center of the fifteen presidents studied. Seven

presidents had more personal coverage than Johnson; seven

presidents had less. According to regression analysis,

Johnson received only 2 percent less coverage than "expected"

of a president who served when he did.

Johnson, like Truman, falls at the center of the

presidents because of the conflicting factors. Johnson

possessed a compelling personality. Big, brash, and

earthy, LBJ had more energy than a herd of Texas longhorns;

the newsworthiness of his personality is shown by the fact

that he led the fifteen presidents in the Personal

Idiosyncrasies category, which gave him 43 percent of his

personal coverage. (See Table 48 in the Appendix) In

addition, his active wife and daughters offered great

potential for personal stories. But LBJ did not trust the

press. He did not give reporters access to his personal

life. Nor did he open the White House doors to the press,

refusing to make accommodations to reporters or to adjust

244

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Table 31.— Lyndon Johnson's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC total

1966 general 1,087 928 629 214 1966 personal 1 0 1 95 67 13 1967 general 614 899 446 518 1967 personal 74 107 1 2 0 69

total general 1,701 1,827 1,075 732 5,333 inches

total personal 175 202 187 82 646 inches

% personal 10 11 17 11 12 percent

Rank: Eighth

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his personal style to their needs.

Lyndon Johnson as a Subject of Personal News

Johnson was the first Texan to serve in the White

House. To journalists, who know that symbols create images

in the minds of readers and viewers, Johnson was the

epitome of Texas. He was big (6 foot 3 inches), loud,

showy, folksy, friendly, pushy, combative, successful, and

active. Johnson also had a razor-sharp mind, great comic

gifts, and a sincere populist drive to make life better for

the American people.

Most memorable of Johnson's characteristics was his

energy. "Lyndon behaves as if there were no tomorrow

coming and he had to do everything today , " 2 2 2 senator

Sam Rayburn said. During the 1964 campaign, Johnson gave

twenty-one speeches in a single day; in 1968 he visited

five Central American countries in one d a y . ^ 2 3 when Bill

Moyers was Johnson's press secretary, he captured the

president's travel style by telling a group of editors that

Johnson recently had telephoned him and announced: "'Bill,

I'm going to Honolulu.' I said: 'Fine, Mr. President; I'll

come over and talk to you about it. Where are you?' He

222j^lfj-g(j Steinberg, Sam Johnson's Bov (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 134.

223Boller, 308.

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said: 'Over Los Angeles. " ' 2 2 4

Johnson was a compulsive talker, constantly coaxing,

prodding, flattering and mollifying politicians for their

support. As historian Paul Conkin wrote, "Johnson always

had some uncollected debts. He could sway a few

last-minute votes by direct pressure or personal

a p p e a l s . " 2 2 5 Bored by fishing and golfing, Johnson

preferred swimming, hunting, and showing visitors around

the LBJ ranch. He enjoyed playing poker and performing as

host to huge, Texas-style barbecues at the ranch.

Johnson's ego was legendary. In The Unfinished

Journey. William H. Chafe said: "If egomania is an

occupational disease of most politicians and virtually all

presidents, Johnson carried the illness to its most extreme

form."226

Johnson's style was colorful. "LBJ was probably the

earthiest man ever to occupy the White H o u s e , "22^ said

Paul F. Boiler, Lyndon B. Johnson Professor of American

history at Texas Christian University. LBJ created the

224jLi2 Carpenter, Ruffles and Flourishes (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970), 223.

225Paul Conkin, Big Daddy from the Pedernales (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986), 135.

226chafe, 244.

227goller, 319.

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most memorable of his earthy images after he had gall

bladder surgery. In his first meeting with the press,

Johnson pulled up his shirt to show newsmen the scar on his

stomach. Right behind that incident are the accounts of

LBJ racing his Lincoln Continental along the country roads

of Texas ninety miles an hour, all the time gulping beer

and scaring passengers half to death. Other memorable

moments occurred the day Johnson offended dog lovers by

playfully picking up one of his beagles by the ears and the

many times LBJ upset the fastidious by swimming nude in the

White House pool.

Johnson went out of his way to shock people. He

belched whenever he felt like it and helped himself to food

on other people's plates, even during formal banquets. If

Johnson was in the middle of a conference and had to go to

the bathroom, he forced his conferees to join him t h e r e .228

Johnson once said of a Kennedy aide: "He doesn't have

sense enough to pour piss out of a boot with the

instructions written on the h e e l . " 2 2 9 Once when asked why

he had not taken a Nixon speech more seriously, Johnson

quipped, "I may not know much, but I know the difference

9 0 0 Tebbel and Watts, 490. 229 David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York; Random House, 1972), 528-29.

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between chicken shit and chicken salad.

At Johnson's side stood a strong, resourceful, and

spunky wife whose nickname— "Lady Bird"— captures her

lively personality. The first lady's national

beautification efforts resulted in the planting of millions

of shrubs, bushes, trees, and flowers. Mrs. Johnson's

campaign also led to legislation that restricted billboards

and junkyards along American highways.

In 1982, history professors ranked Mrs. Johnson

second only to Eleanor Roosevelt among the twentieth

century's first ladies. She ranked immediately behind Mrs.

Roosevelt in her value to the country, leadership,

intelligence, and accomplishments. She placed third in

background, courage, public image, value to her husband,

and being her "own w o m a n . "231

The Johnsons brought to the White House two teenage

daughters— a double dose of an ingredient that Alice

Roosevelt and the Wilson girls proved could produce

considerable press coverage. First Daughter Lynda Bird

Johnson received considerable attention during her

relationship with actor George Hamilton and her courtship

by and marriage to Charles Robb, who later served as

230lbid.

231shearer, 8,

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governor of Virginia. Both Lynda and her sister Luci were

married while their father was president.

Lyndon Johnson's Press Relations

Johnson's problem with the press was either an

inability or an unwillingness to make the transition from

being a congressional newsmaker to being a presidential

newsmaker. Conkin wrote in Bio Daddy from the

Pedernales:

As Senate majority leader he had been able to establish a special close relationship to the few reporters who covered congressional affairs. . . . He entertained and informed, and generally received a favorable treatment in return. But as president, he found that such small, informal briefings no longer worked. Dozens of reporters . . . now hung on to his every word; they were too many, too unwieldy and too pushy for Johnson.232

Watching how Kennedy had adroitly handled the press,

Johnson thought he could achieve similar success with his

bold, powerful Texas style. He was wrong. Tebbel and

Watts pointed out that Kennedy never relied solely on his

personal relationships with reporters to achieve his agenda o o o with the press, but Johnson did. Johnson tried to

indebt reporters to him by staging elaborate cookouts for

them at his ranch. Reporters were given "the treatment,"

232Conkin, 185.

233;pebbel and Watts, 490.

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with LBJ taking them on long walks, letting them in on

important policy decisions. Johnson also had an assistant

remind him of reporters' birthdays, anniversaries, and

illnesses and was sure to send cards, flowers, and gifts in

obvious attempts to ingratiate the reporters to him.

LBJ did not seem to know that professional

journalists draw a line between friendship and business.

He could nc t accept that a powerhouse from the great state

of Texas could not manipulate reporters into portraying him

as he wanted to be portrayed.

Nor did Johnson bother to understand the most basic

of jouralistic conventions. One time Johnson called a

Newsweek correspondent into his office, for example, and

dressed him down for quoting a Democratic politician on

LBJ's political plans. "If you want to know what Lyndon

Baines Johnson is going to do at the convention, why didn't

you come to Lyndon Baines Johnson and ask him what Lyndon

Baines Johnson was going to do?" The correspondent said a

good reporter gathers the perspectives of many sources to

provide a full view of an issue. Then he asked Johnson

what he was going to do at the convention. Johnson

answered: "I don't k n o w . "234

Johnson, in the shadow of the telegenic JFK, wanted

234 Steinberg, 536.

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very much to influence the medium he knew was so

influential, but television was Johnson's nemesis.

Throughout his long political career, he had used his size

to overwhelm opponents and voters alike. But the

television screen reduced his huge height to a long face

framed by two huge ears.

Johnson came to believe that the people loved him but

that they were swayed by the newspapers constantly

insisting that he gave uninspired speeches and that he was

killing American soldiers in an unnecessary war.

Eventually it was television that stripped away the Johnson

image and allowed the public to see what the Washington

correspondents had seen: an obsessive liar who would do

anything to win.

Johnson's only contribution to the press-presidential

relationship was a legacy of distrust and suspicion that

lingers to this day. With the deception shrouding his

Vietnam policy, Johnson created a credibility gap

unprecedented in the nation's history. That gap bred

public distrust in both the presidency and the press.

Tebbel and Watts concluded: "The celebrated 'credibility

gap' was probably the most explosive and significant

element in the history of Johnson's press r e l a t i o n s . "233

235 Tebbel and Watts, 496.

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The deceit surrounding the Vietnam War turned the

press-Johnson credibility gap into a chasm that could not be

bridged. In his last years, LBJ said the war had destroyed

his presidency. "I blew it," Johnson told Doris Kearns, a

Harvard professor who worked with him on his autobiography.

"I knew from the start that if I left the woman I really

loved--the Great Society— in order to fight that bitch of a

war . . . then I would lose everything at home. All my

hopes . . . my d r e a m s . "236

Lyndon Johnson's Personal Coverage

Lyndon Johnson received more coverage of his Personal

Idosyncrasies than did any other twentieth century

president. (See Table 48 in the Appendix) It accounted

for 43 percent of his personal coverage. (See Table 32)

Because this category is composed of glimpses into the

president's personality and character, Johnson's figure

indicates that he may have had the most intriguing

personality of any twentieth century president.

Some of the stories captured a sense of Johnson's

fiery temper and high energy level. A Los Angeles Times

story about Johnson rejecting a presidential portrait, for

example, said: "To be sure, the weeks (the artist spent on

236 Joseph Kraft, "The Post-Imperial Presidency," New York Times Magazine. 2 November 1980, 78.

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Table 32.— Categories of Lyndon Johnson's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1 9 6 6 1 9 6 7 1 9 6 6 1 9 6 7 1 9 6 6 1 9 6 7 1966 1967 Total

A 0 G G G G 3 G G 3

B 0 74 G 45 4 61 G 28 212 (33%)

C 0 G 7 G G GG 0 7 (1%)

D 32 GG G 2 1 G 13 0 66 (10%)

E 20 0 2 4 5 12 19 0 G 8 0 (12%)

F 49 G 64 57 30 37 G 41 278 (43%)

G G G 0 G 0 G GG G

H 0 G G G G G GG G

6 4 6 i n c h e s

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the portrait) had been filled with annoyances— such as the

President dozing during a sitting and temperamental

flare-ups between artist and subject." Johnson sat for the

portrait for less than an hour, according to the story, and

one session was combined with the president talking to the

country's ambassador to the United Nations. "Unfortunately

for (the artist), Mr. Johnson kept jumping up and down, 237 pacing the floor and rubbing his face."

Other Personal Idiosyncrasies stories showed the

humanistic side of the man who led the Great Society and

civil rights reform. One story told of a proud Johnson

showing members of the U.S. Senate a penciled note written

by his long-time family cook, Mrs. Zephyr White. The note

read; "Mr. President, you have been my boss for a number of years and you always tell me you want to loose (sic) weight and yet you never do much to help yourself. Now I am going to be your boss for a change. Eat what I put in front of you and don't ask for any more and don't complain."

After sharing the note, according to the story, "Mr.

Johnson said the note shows there is no need to worry about

arrogance in the White House. 'Nobody is likely to get too

big for his britches when he gets notes like this,' he

237 Los Angeles Times. "Johnson Rejects Portrait," 6 January 1967, 1.

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said."

Johnson's second largest category was Immediate

Family/Homelife Activities. This category also was a very

significant one for Johnson, accounting for 33 percent of

his personal coverage and ranking Johnson as the fourth

highest president in this category. (See Table 44 in the

Appendix) Many stories described Johnson as the doting

grandfather to his first grandson, who was born while

Johnson was president. The New York Times covered 33

column inches on its front page with a formal portrait of

the Johnson family in 1967.

Johnson's third largest category was Interaction with

Celebrities. Stories in this category, which accounted for

12 percent of Johnson's personal coverage, included a

photograph of Johnson shaking hands with consumer rights

advocate Ralph Nader.

Johnson's high energy level and compulsive dedication

to work were reflected in the small number of

Vacation/Personal Travel stories. Johnson received less

than 1 percent of his personal coverage in this

category— the lowest of any twentieth century president.

(See Table 43 in the Appendix)

238 Los Angeles Times, "Cook Cuts Him Down to Size, Johnson Says," 6 May 1966, l.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon ranks at the absolute bottom of the

twentieth century presidents with regard to personal news

coverage. Personal stories amounted to only 5 percent of

his total news coverage. (See Table 43)

Nixon personal coverage is so low that many

comparisons are dramatic. His personal coverage figure is

less than half that of either Johnson, who preceded him, or

Ford, who replaced him. Nixon's figure is the lowest among

the recent presidents, and regression analysis shows that he

received 8 percent less personal coverage than "expected" for

a president serving when he did. But most dramatic of all is

the fact that Nixon's personal coverage is less than

one-tenth that of Teddy Roosevelt.

Nixon's small amount of personal coverage is a direct

result of the same factors shared by several other recent

presidents. He possessed neither a newsworthy personality

nor personal life, and he refused to give reporters open

access to the White House or his personal life.

Richard Nixon as a Subject of Personal News

In his book about Nixon, psychoanalyst David

Abrahamsen described the former president as secretive.

257

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Table 33.— Richard Nixon's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC total

1970 general 1,390 1,314 598 600 1970 personal 39 1 1 62 6 1971 general 814 595 300 432 1971 personal 71 0 62 48

total general 2,204 1,909 898 1,032 6,043 inches

total personal 1 1 0 1 1 124 54 299 inches

% personal 5 1 14 5 5 percent

Rank: Fifteenth

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suspicious, hypersensitive, devious, untrustworthy, and

narcissistic, a man torn by inner conflict. Harry Truman,

in 1961, had no problem summing up his feelings about

Nixon: "He doesn't give a damn about people; he doesn't

know how to tell the truth. I don't think the son of a

bitch knows the difference between telling the truth and

lying.

Nixon's character defects do not translate easily

into positive, upbeat feature stories or the brief personal

stories that so often add a spot of humor to Page One.

Nor was Nixon a president who easily relaxed with

hobbies or recreational activities that could be the

subjects of personal stories. What's more, during his

White House years, Nixon's secretive nature created such a

thick wall around him that the press had no opportunity to

catch glimpses of the president's personal life.

Throughout her husband's long career on the political

roller coaster, Pat Nixon avoided publicity. When history

professors rated the century's seventeen first ladies, Mrs.

Nixon finished fourth. Her lowest ratings came in being

her own woman (seventeenth), leadership (sixteenth), and

accomplishments (sixteenth). She ranked fifteenth in value

239David Abrahamsen, Nixon vs. Nixon: An Emotional Tragedy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), 172,

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Tricia Nixon never spoke publicly on matters of

substance and only rarely appeared at any public events,

although she received considerable news coverage during her

Rose Garden wedding in 1971. The more visible Julie Nixon

remained a loyal and outspoken defender of her father

throughout the Watergate scandal, and she and her husband,

David Eisenhower, both received considerable media

attention.

Richard Nixon's Press Relations

Every president has enjoyed a honeymoon with the

press, and virtually every one has suffered an unpleasant

end to that honeymoon. But Nixon suffered the honeymoon's

end earlier than any other president: seven years before his

presidency began.

In 1962, after losing a presidential race and a

California gubernatorial race, Nixon bitterly said, "As I

leave the press, all I can say is this: for 16 years . . .

you've had a lot of fun— you've had an opportunity to

attack me . . . You won't have Nixon to kick around

anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press

conference.By the time he made this statement, Nixon

^^^Shearer, 8.

2^^Time, "California End," 80, 16 November 1962, 28.

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had established his all-consuming feeling toward the press:

hatred.

By 1967, when Nixon again embarked on a race for the

White House, he expected to do battle with the media. "I

considered the influential majority of the news media to be

part of my political opposition," Nixon said at that

time.242 Nixon's press paranoia was fully developed, even

though 80 percent of the nation's newspapers supported him

in his 1968 campaign. Regardless of the endorsements, he

treated every newsman as an enemy.

Early in the Nixon administration, reporters learned

that Nixon's strategy was simply not to provide them with

any news. Tebbel and Watts observed:

Hard information was nearly totally absent from the first six press conferences. . . . While While there was a great deal happening, particularly in Vietnam . . . briefings were bland denials that anything at all was o c c u r r i n g . 243

Nixon made a major mistake when he named 29-year-old

Ronald Ziegler to be his press secretary. Unqualified for

the job, Ziegler had served only as a press agent for

Disneyland and J. Walter Thompson. The arrogant press

agent antagonized reporters so thoroughly that Theodore

White described the sessions as degenerating into "macabre

94? Tebbel and Watts, 502.

243ibid., 505.

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sadism and black humor."244

Nixon's main contact with the press was through live,

unannounced speeches and statements on television. He

allowed no time for follow-up questions, ensuring that he

would have total control of the media events.

Under Nixon, press-president relations sank to the

lowest level in history. By deceiving, manipulating, and

intimidating the media, Nixon destroyed presidential

credibility. "It is a dismal record to contemplate, surely

the most shameful in the history of the presidency,

according to Tebbel and Watts.

Specifically, Nixon used government agencies to

intimidate reporters. The Federal Communication Commission

monitored the television networks; the Internal Revenue

Service investigated out-of-favor news organizations.

Nixon also enlisted his vice president to be his media

hatchet man. Spiro Agnew attacked television and then

newspapers in a McCarthy-like fashion by using innuendo and

half-truths to encourage public hostility toward the media.

In addition, Nixon attempted to exercise prior

restraint of publication. With the Pentagon Papers case.

244Theodore White, The Making of the President 1968 (New York: Signet Books, 1970), 130. 245 Tebbel and Watts, 509.

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Nixon became the first president to attempt to prevent

publication of legitimate news. His action, the Supreme

Court ruled, was in direct violation of the First

Amendment.

Under a president who broke new ground in distortion

of the truth and manipulation of the press, there was

virtually no personal news from the White House.

Richard Nixon's Personal Coverage

Perhaps most remarkable about the breakdown of

categories of Nixon's personal coverage is the fact that

there was not a single story in four of the eight

categories. (See Table 34) There was not a word written

about Nixon's Social Life, Interaction with "Little

People," Ceremonial Events, or Extended Family.

(Nixon's personal coverage figures are so low that it

immediately should be noted that considering only his

percentage figures is misleading. Nixon's coverage in the

Interaction with Celebrities category accounted for 42

percent of his personal coverage, for example, while Jimmy

Carter's percentage figure in this category was only 34.

But Nixon actually had only 127 column inches of coverage

in this category, while Carter had 289 column inches— more

than twice as much as Nixon.) (See Table 47 in the

Appendix)

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Table 34.— Categories of Richard Nixon's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1970 1971 197G 1971 197G 1971 197G 1971 Total

A G G G G G 16 G G 16 (5%)

B 39 18 1 1 0 25 24 G G 117 (39%)

C G G G G G G G G G

D GG G 0 G G G G G

E G 53 G G 37 2 2 6 9 127 (42%)

FG 0 G G G GG 39 39 (13%)

G G G GGG G 0 G 0

HG G G G G GG G G

299 inches

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Nixon received his largest concentration of personal

coverage from Interaction with Celebrities. Most of this

coverage resulted from photo opportunities staged by the

White House. Subjects included congressmen, governors, the

president of the AFL-CIO, and the governor of a tribe of

American Indians. Also included was a story about the

Nixons hosting thirty-nine members of the John Quincy Adams

family at the White House during a National Portrait

Gallery exhibit of Adams family portraits

Immediate Family/Homelife Activities ranked second.

The 39 percent of Nixon's personal coverage in this

category included a story about a Nixon birthday

celebration. The Los Angeles Times lead read:

NORTHAMPTON, Mass.— President Nixon flew to this snowy college town Friday night for a brief dinner with his family to celebrate his 57th birthday. About 200 antiwar demonstrators chanted outside the apartment building.247

The story stated that Nixon was in the apartment less

than two hours and ignored the demonstrators.

Coverage of Nixon's Personal Idiosyncrasies accounted

for 13 percent of his personal news coverage, ranking this

category as his third largest. Although this coverage

^^^St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Nixon Hosts Tea for John Quincy Adams Family," 6 November 1970, 1.

247^02 Angeles Times. "Nixon Dines with Julie on 57th Birthday," 10 January 1970, 1.

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actually consisted of only one photograph and caption, it

may rank as the most extraordinary coverage in the

study— considering later revelations regarding Nixon

tapping into telephone conversations. The 1971 Associated

Press photograph showed a grinning Nixon holding an

old-fashioned telephone. The caption began with the

headline; "Tapped?" The text of the caption read:

"President Nixon quips about who might be listening to an

old phone given him at the White House Friday after he

O A Q signed a bill establishing a Rural Telephone Bank."

Nixon, in addition to receiving no coverage in four

of the eight categories, ranked low in Vacations/Personal

Travel; his 5 percent figure placed him beneath every

president except fellow workaholics Lyndon Johnson and

Woodrow Wilson. (See Table 43 in the Appendix)

Atlanta Constitution. "Tapped?," 8 May 1971, 1.

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Gerald Ford ranks twelfth in the amount of personal

coverage he received. His personal coverage accounted for

9 percent of his total news coverage. (See Table 35) Ford

received less personal coverage than every president except

Hoover, Eisenhower, and Nixon.

Ford's low ranking with regard to personal coverage

is a result of the same lackings that many recent presidents

have possessed; a personality and personal life that are not

particularly newsworthy and a relationship with the White

House press corps that did not produce large quantities of

positive personal news stories. With Ford, however, it

immediately should be pointed out that his less-than-ideal

relations with the press were the result of circumstances

largely beyond Ford's control. Ford's feelings about the

press, or, for that matter, the reporters' feelings about

Ford.

Gerald Ford as a Subject of Personal News

If a movie were to be made about the two and a half

years Ford served as president, that movie could be titled;

"A Boy Scout in the White House." Ford is well liked by

virtually everyone who knows him. "The nicest thing about

267

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Table 35.— Gerald Ford's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC total

1975 general 1,663 1,147 642 426 1975 personal 73 17 71 2 2 1976 general 1,087 911 588 341 1976 personal 105 130 1 2 1 49

total general 2,750 2,058 767 1,231 6,806 inches

total personal 178 147 71 192 588 inches

% personal 6 7 9 16 9 percent

Rank: Twelfth

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Jerry Ford," said former Michigan Sen. Robert Griffin, "is 249 that he just doesn't have enemies." Even politicians

who opposed Ford on significant issues thought well of him.

One opponent. Rep. Pete McCloskey of California, said: "I

can get tears in my eyes when I think about Jerry Ford. We

love him."

Early in the Ford administration, the Washington Post

assigned a team of reporters to spend six weeks

interviewing people who knew and had worked with Ford. The

reporters created this list of positive traits: "Warm.

Honest. Generous. Loyal. Clear-eyed. Earnest. Sincere.

Plain in manner and expression. Comfortable.

Self-confident. A hard worker. A man of character, good

sense, prudence and d e c e n c y .

Ford did his best to prove the presidency does not

have to be imperial. Typical was an incident that occurred

while the First Family was having dinner. When a family

dog did on the floor what it was trained to do outside, a

White House steward jumped forward and began wiping up the

mess. The president rose from his chair, took the cloth

249jerald F. terHorst, Gerald Ford and the Future of the Presidency (New York; Third Press, 1975), 215.

250Richard Reeves, A Ford. Not a Lincoln (New York; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), 28. 251 Ibid., 116.

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from the steward, and wiped up the mess, saying: "No man 252 should have to clean up after another man's dog."

But in assessing the newsworthiness of Ford's

personal characteristics, an observer must acknowledge that

being a nice guy does not translate into headlines. In

addition, the adjective "nice" is often followed by the

unspoken adjective "dull," a trait that never makes

headlines. The Washington Post reporting team created this

list of Ford's negative traits: "Slow, plodding,

pedestrian, unimaginative. Nonintellectual, lacks

conceptual ability. Doesn't want change. Inarticulate."253

Ford's dearth of compelling characteristics

inevitably led most news organizations to focus on the

jokes about Ford's clumsiness and misstatements. Such

shallow jokes lent themselves to brief stories, creating a

void of lengthy or sustained coverage of Ford's personality

or personal life. The jokes became a serious problem

because Ford was the first president who was never elected

to national office, and he constantly struggled to prove

that he had the capacity for national leadership.254

252j^on Nessen, It Sure Looks Different from the Inside (New York: Playboy Press, 1978), xiv.

253Reeves, 116-17.

254Reeves, 116.

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Betty Ford was an inspirational first lady. The

former professional dancer spoke out in favor of

liberalized abortion laws, the Equal Rights Amendment and

the appointment of a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. She

promoted aid to the handicapped and mentally retarded.

After having a radical mastectomy, she spoke candidly and

with poise on the importance of early detection. She also

spoke freely of her struggle against addiction to alcohol

and pain-killing drugs, which she took because of an

inoperable pinched nerve.

When history professors ranked this century's

seventeen first ladies, Mrs. Ford finished fourth. She

ranked second, behind only Eleanor Roosevelt, in three

categories: integrity, being her "own woman," and courage.

She was rated fourth in public image and fifth in value to

the country, leadership, intelligence, accomplishments, and

value to the president.

The Ford children were adults by the time their

father reached the White House. All four received some

publicity, generally as a family unit.

Gerald Ford's Press Relations

The press liked Gerald Ford, but the circumstances of

his ascendancy to the presidency and the brief period he

255^ ^ Shearer, 8 .

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served in the White House precluded his developing

particularly productive press relations.

Ford's fate with the press, to a large extent, was

sealed by the end of his first press conference. Even

though Ford devoted ten hours to preparing for the session,

including dress rehearsals with staff members, it was at

this conference that he made the biggest mistake in his

dealings with the press; giving no hint that he would

pardon Nixon only eleven days later.

"While the country's approval of the President

dropped from 71 per cent to 50 per cent after the pardon,"

Richard Reeves wrote in his book, A Ford. Not a Lincoln,

"the press was less restrained, dropping Ford from near 100

to zero. Reporters just turned a full 180 degrees and

began to pound Ford."256 Pardoning Nixon may or may not

have been in the best interest of the country, but it

tainted Ford, contaminating him with the deceit of Nixon

and Johnson before him.

Despite Ford's relations with the press beginning on

this troubled note, reporters did not treat him with rancor

or alienation. They felt considerable affection for the

likeable caretaker who presented a night-and-day contrast

to Nixon.

256Reeves, 92-93.

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Ford raised the tone of press-president relations

from the abysmal depths of the Nixon days. He restored

White House credibility with the press, and his press

conferences had a totally different spirit than Nixon's.

The sessions were not necessarily more informative than

those of the Nixon administration, however, because neither

Ford nor Press Secretary Ron Nessen was adept at press

relations. Nessen was a thin-skinned young man who damaged

his credibility with the press corps by magnifying

everything the president did in a way that sounded like

press agentry.

Ford's most frustrating problem with the media was

their obsession with the idea that he was awkward and

ungainly. Initially the press was frustrated with Ford

because he seemed to have no traits that could be

magnified. His personality was amorphous. It was several

months before Ford press coverage finally was rescued from

blandness. In May 1975, Ford was walking down the ramp of

a plane in Salzburg, Austria, when he tripped and tumbled

down the tarmac. Later the same day. Ford's foot slid

twice on a rain-slicked staircase. With those two

incidents, the reputation was set— if not earned. From

then on, whenever Ford stumbled, the world heard about it.

Ford said in his autobiography, A Time to Heal;

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Every time I stumbled or bumped my head or fell in the snow, reporters zeroed in on that to the exclusion of almost everything else. . . . The news coverage was harmful, but even more damaging was the fact that Johnny Carson and Chevy Chase used my "missteps" for their jokes. Their antics— and I'll admit that I laughed at them myself— helped create the public perception of me as a stumbler. And that wasn't funny.257

Betty Ford's frank comments about morality, breast

cancer, alcoholism, and drug abuse alarmed some Ford

advisers. But her remarks endeared her and her husband's

administration to most journalists, who were pleased to

have a first lady who appeared not nearly as "goody-goody"

as her husband.

Gerald Ford's Personal Coverage

Gerald Ford received his largest portion of personal

news coverage in the Interaction with Celebrities category,

which accounted for 37 percent of his personal coverage.

(See Table 36) Ford's percentage figure ranked him higher

than all but two presidents (Nixon at 42 percent; Hoover at

39), and his actual number of column inches— 218— was

higher than Nixon's 127 or Hoover's 110. (See Table 47 in

the Appendix)

Most of the stories came during Queen Elizabeth's

visit to the United States as part of the American

257cerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal. the Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), 289.

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Table 36.— Categories of Gerald Ford's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP~D AC

1975 1976 1975 1976 1975 1976 1975 1976 Total

A 0 0 0 31 0 37 0 0 6 8 (1 2 %)

B 0 31 0 36 0 0 2 2 0 89 (15%)

C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

D 0 27 2 0 17 0 0 0 0 64 (1 1 %)

E 73 47 0 43 0 35 0 2 0 218 (37%)

F 0 0 0 0 71 49 0 2 0 140 (24%)

G 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 9 (2 %)

H 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

588 inches

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Bicentennial celebration, as the Boy Scout in the White

House became the Gentleman in the White House. "As the

welcoming fanfare of 'Rule Britannia' died away, the Queen

emerged from the car to be greeted by the President and o r o Mrs. Ford," according to a New York Times story.

Ford never left her side, escorting her everywhere from

black tie dinners to services at the Washington National

Cathedral. And the press, smitten by royalty, chronicled

every detail. "Despite the heat, the Queen looked cool in

a fitted coatdress of aquamarine silk with a matching puffy

beret topped with a pompom."^59

Ford's second largest category was Personal

Idiosyncrasies. He received 24 percent of his personal

coverage in this category. Many stories illustrated the

media's obsession with Ford's alleged clumsiness. The

Constitution, for example, covered twenty column inches at

the top of its front page with three Associated Press

photos and the caption: "President Ford bumped his head

Friday while backing into his helicopter to leave the White

House for a campaign swing through Nebraska." The caption

dredged up the past examples of clumsiness as well:

258 The New York Times. "Queen Being Escorted by President and Mrs. Ford," 8 July 1976, 1.

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Last year, the President stumbled down the steps of Air Force One during a visit to Austria. And, photographers were close by earlier this year when he t o o k a tumble on the ski slopes in Colorado.260

Immediate Family/Homelife Activities accounted for a

significant portion of Ford's personal coverage. The 15

percent in this category consisted largely of photographs

showing the president participating in casual activities

with his wife and grown children. fïf) Atlanta Constitution. "Another Bump," 8 May 1976, 1 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter ranked eleventh among the fifteen

presidents, with his personal coverage amounting to only 1 0

percent of his total news coverage. (See Table 37) Carter

received less personal coverage than every president except

Ford, Hoover, Eisenhower, and Nixon.

Like other recent presidents. Carter had two

weaknesses that doomed him to small quantities of personal

coverage. First, he lacked a dynamic personality or a

compelling personal life. Second, because he did not have

good press relations, he distanced himself from reporters.

Jimmy Carter as a Subject of Personal News

Carter's own campaign manager said Carter had the

"weirdo factor."261 This dubious distinction was largely

due to Carter's religious fundamentalism. Devoutly

religious. Carter grew up in the Southern Baptist Church,

was "born again" in 1967, and served as a missionary in the

Northeast. He read the Bible and prayed daily, and he

taught Sunday School even while serving as president. In

1979, Carter even tried to persuade the president of South

261jules Witcover, Marathon; The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972-1976 (New York; Viking Press, 1977), 330.

278

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Table 37.— Jimmy Carter's Newspaper coverage

NYT LAT SLP-DAC total

1978 general 1,497 694 343 1,072 1978 personal 270 53 37 45 1979 general 1,691 1,276 569 1,180 1979 personal 56 241 37 1 2 0

total general 3,188 1,970 2,252 912 8,319 inches

total personal 326 294 74 165 859 inches

% personal 1 0 15 7 8 1 0 percent

Rank; Eleventh

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Korea, a Buddhist, to accept Christianity

Journalistic skepticism makes many reporters shy away

from writing about religion, as demonstrated by the low

status of religion as a subject of front-page news.

Religion most often is propelled onto the front page when

the subject is accompanied by ridicule, such as the Tammy

Faye and Jim Bakker scandal. When journalists were

confronted with a president who also was a born-again

fundamentalist, they found the combination so paradoxical

that their reaction was either to ignore or to ridicule

Carter's religiosity. It soon became clear that Carter's

most newsworthy characteristic would not translate into a

continuing flow of personal news stories.

Carter's second most unusual characteristic was his

being the first president since Zachary Taylor from the

Deep South (Wilson was born in Virginia but moved to the

North). But neither did this factor translate into a

significant amount of personal stories.

Carter is introspective and always ready to confront

his own shortcomings. His most memorable news interview

came in 1979 when he told Playbov magazine: "I've looked

at a lot of women with lust. This is something that God

Kandy Stroud, How Jimmv Carter Won: the Victory Campaign from Plains to the White House (New York: Morrow, 1977), 133.

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recognizes I will do . . . and God forgives me for

it."263 Carter had hoped the interview would dispel the

notion that he was narrow-minded, but many people

interpreted his words as self-righteous.

Carter's actions frequently brought about perceptions

he had not foreseen. Carter carried his own suit bag onto

Air Force One, for example, to show that he was a common

man who did not need a valet. But many people interpreted

his action as an indication that he lacked the confidence

befitting a president. "There was a growing feeling in the

nation that the man who occupied the Oval Office did not

exactly occupy the presidency,"264 victor Lasky said in

his book, Jimmy Carter, the Man and the Mvth. The American

people also came to think of Carter as being overly serious

and lacking a sense of humor.

In his re-election bid. Carter won only forty-nine

electoral votes to Reagan's 489. For the first time since

Hoover and the Depression, an incumbent president who had

won a first term was denied a second.

Rosalynn Smith married her high school sweetheart in

Plains, Georgia, when she was 18 and he was 21. They

^^^Bill Adler, ed., Wit and Wisdom of Jimmv Carter (Secaucus, N. J.: Citadel Press), 59.

264Yictor Lasky, Jimmv Carter, the Man and the Myth (New York: Richard Marek Publishers, 1983), 12.

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worked as a team for the thirty years before he took

office, and the president regularly discussed policy with

her. Like Eleanor Roosevelt, Mrs. Carter painstakingly

overcame a basic shyness to deliver speeches and to promote

issues independently of her husband. Rosalynn Carter

became the only first lady ever to sit in on her husband's

Cabinet meetings. She also was the first president's wife

since Mrs. Roosevelt to testify before Congress. Mrs.

Carter's testimony was part of her effort to gain more

funds for mental health programs, but she also spoke out

for the Equal Rights Amendment.

When history professors ranked this century's

seventeen first ladies, Mrs. Carter finished third, behind

only Eleanor Roosevelt and Lady Bird Johnson. Mrs. Carter

ranked first in value to the president, the only one of ten

categories in which Mrs. Roosevelt was not first. Mrs.

Carter ranked third in integrity, leadership, and

intelligence; fourth in value to the country, being her

"own woman," and accomplishments; fifth in courage and

public i m a g e . 265

The three Carter sons were grown when their father

became president. So Amy Carter was at the center of the

media spotlight, which often proved too intense for a young

265ghearer, 8 .

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girl going through the awkward years of adolescence.

First Brother Billy Carter was a media favorite. The

gas station operator entered the headlines when he cashed

in on his brother's notoriety by creating and marketing

"Billy's Beer." Billy Carter also received considerable

coverage when he was treated for alcoholism and when he had

questionable dealings with Libyan diplomats. First Sister

Ruth Carter Stapleton received some coverage because of her

profession as an evangelist.

Jimmy Carter's Press Relations

Carter's press relations were strained from virtually

the day he walked into the White House, but the real irony

is that the obscure Georgian never would have been elected

president if it had not been for the media.

The paradox of candidate Carter's media success and

President Carter's media failure is reconciled by

understanding that the beleaguered American voters were

attracted to a Christian savior coming to their rescue

after the Watergate scandal that was the legacy of the

Republicans. Voters wanted the squeaky-clean savior to

deliver their nation from the evils of its recent past.

But once Carter arrived in the White House, the press

began to discover some weaknesses in the would-be savior.

For example, candidate Carter took advantage of the media's

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interest in unusual phenomena, such as a born-again

Southerner running for president. When he reached the

White House, however. Carter criticized the media for

focusing on such phenomena. He lashed out at the media's

constant insistence upon covering what Carter considered

trivial and unimporant. During a 1979 press briefing.

Carter said:

"I would like for you all (in the White House press corps), as people who relay Washington events to the world, to take a look at the substantive questions I have to face as president and quit dealing almost exclusively with personalities."266

By that time. Carter considered the media superficial

and sensational, always out to get a story without regard

for the truth.

So, in Carter's mind, there was no point in talking

with the media about serious issues. He simply expected to

define what the serious issues were and then to go over the

heads of the press and to speak directly to the people.

Carter hoped to change the world through the Middle East

peace accords, for example, but he was not willing to

devote time and energy to dealing with the press as a means

of communicating his ideas and plans to the American

people. Carter saw reporters as another obstacle on the

^^^Grossman and Kumar, Portraying the President. 8 .

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high road on which he wanted to lead humanity. When Carter

came to accept the fact that he would never reach that

road, he loathed the press.

One of Carter's problems in dealing with the press

was his propensity for long, complex statements.

"Confronted with a series of complicated and ambiguous

questions," said James Reston of The New York Times, "he

simply refused to give simple answers."^67 All audiences

have trouble understanding long, complex responses, but

people in a television audience have a particularly

difficult time because they have only one chance to hear

and to understand information. Carter never learned to

talk in sound bites.

- A second problem, according to press-president

scholars Tebbel and Watts, was Carter's lack of knowledge

about the most basic of press corps procedures. Early in

his presidency, for example, Carter departed on trips

without the customary pool of reporters accompanying him.

He also appeared suddenly, without press notification, at 268 Washington cultural events.

A president who does not understand the press can

fare reasonably well if he has a savvy press secretary

^^^Tebbel and Watts, 524.

2G8lbid., 526-27.

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who can compensate for the president's deficiencies in

dealing with the press corps. Jody Powell, however, failed

to provide this assistance for Carter. Powell did not have

the press credentials or experience to be of much help to

his old Georgia buddy. Carter entrusted Powell with a great

deal of knowledge, but the press secretary was as naive

about the press as Carter was.^

It was Carter's personality that ultimately led to

his downfall. Carter is a private, introspective man who

becomes irritated by constant questions about his positions

and motives.

Carter's frustration with the press intensified

during the Iranian hostage crisis. The ordeal magnified

Carter's weaknesses and provided a painful illustration of

how inept Carter was at making tough decisions. During his

last four months in office, the embittered president held

no press conferences. By that point. Carter blamed the

media for his approaching downfall.270

Carter made no substantial contributions to

press-president relations.

269 Ibid., 524.

^^°Ibid., 530.

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Jimmy Carter's Personal Coverage

Jimmy Carter received his most personal coverage in

the category of Interaction with Celebrities. This

category accounted for 34 percent of Carter's personal

coverage. (See Table 38)

Many of Carter's celebrity dealings were a result of

the personal relationships that evolved during his efforts

to achieve world peace. A four-column photograph in the

Los Angeles Times, for example, showed First Ladies

Rosalynn Carter and Jihan Sadat holding hands while

greeting the crowd at the end of a train trip through the 271 Nile Delta. Another Times photograph showed Carter

holding an umbrella to protect Israeli Prime Minister

Menachem Begin from the rain.^^^ Yet another photograph

showed Carter on Omaha Beach with French President Valery

Giscard d'Estang.273

Carter's second largest category was Extended Family.

(See Table 50 in the Appendix) His 29 percent figure was

the highest of any twentieth-century president and almost

2 7 1 l o s Angeles Times. "Carters and Sadats Wave to Onlookers," 10 March 1979, 1.

2 7 2 l o s Angeles Times. "Carter and Begin Outside White House," 5 March 1979, 1.

273Atlanta Constitution. "Carter on the Beach with Giscard," 6 January 1978, 1.

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Table 38.— Categories of Jimmy Carter's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1978 1979 1978 1979 19781979 1978 1979 T o ta l

A 44 24 G G 23 GG G 91 (11%)

B 19 G 18 19 0 37 18 G 111 (13%)

C 0 G 0 0 0 G 0 0 0

D 0 G G G 0 G 0 G G

E 107 G 35 78 14 G 27 28 289 (34%)

F 51 G 0 16 G GG G 67 (8%)

G 49 0 0 0 0 0 0 G 49 (6%)

H 0 32 0 128 G G G 92 252 (29%)

859 in c h e s

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twice as high as the next highest figure, Kennedy's 15

percent. Eight of the fifteen presidents had no stories in

this category.

Almost all of the Extended Family stories were about

Carter's brother Billy, whose newsmaking activities

included his seeking treatment for alcoholism, being

investigated by the FBI because of the family peanut

business, and becoming closely involved with Arab diplomats

and businessmen. "The White House acted today to

disassociate President Carter from a boisterous tour that

the President's brother, Billy Carter, is conducting for

Libyan businessmen and officials," one New York Times lead

stated. Press Secretary Jody Powell was quoted as denying

that the president shared his brother's anti-Semitic views.

"Privately, a White House aide went even further, saying

that the President was both embarrassed by and unable to

stop his younger brother,"^74 the Times said. The story

appeared soon after Billy Carter was quoted as attributing

Libya's poor international image to the fact that "the

Jewish media tears up the Arab countries full time" and

after the president's brother was reported to have stepped

from an Arab limousine and urinated on the runway apron at

274The New York Times. "Carter Disassociates Himself from Brother," 12 January 1979, 1.

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the Atlanta airport.

Carter's third largest category was Immediate

Family/Homelife Activities. All of the 13 percent of

personal coverage in this category dealt with the first

lady. "Rosalynn Carter will visit camps in Thailand this

week in behalf of her husband, President Jimmy Carter, the

White House announced today,"^75 stated one Post-Dispatch

lead. She also met with Thailand's prime minister and

officials of international relief organizations. One

photograph showed Mrs. Carter kissing a Cambodian b a b y . ^76

Carter was one of only three presidents who received

no stories in the Interaction with "Little People"

category. (See Table 46 in the Appendix)

275st. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Mrs. Carter To See Cambodian Refugee Camps," 6 November 1979, 1.

276gt. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Rosalynn Carter Kisses Cambodian Baby," 9 November 1979, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan ranks ninth among the presidents, with

personal stories accounting for 1 1 percent of his total

news coverage. (See Table 39) He ranks near the middle of

the presidents, with eight presidents receiving more

personal coverage and six receiving less.

It is significant, however, that Reagan ranks higher

than the three presidents who preceded him and that,

according to regression analysis, he received 1 percent

more personal coverage than "expected" of a president

serving when he did. These facts are understandable

because Reagan— unlike Nixon, Ford, and Carter— has one of

the most compelling personalities of any of this century's

presidents.

Reagan and several of the other recent presidents,

however, have in common their insistence upon maintaining a

distance from the press. Reagan has allowed press coverage

strictly on his own terms and has limited press access to

an unparalleled degree.

Ronald Reagan as a Subject for Personal News

Reagan is a journalistic goldmine. The first actor

to become president offers the news element of celebrity.

291

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Table 39.— Ronald Reagan's Newspaper Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC t o t a l

1982 general 1,071 702 703 284 1982 personal 70 97 10 42 1983 general 1 ,0 8 2 871 404 405 1983 personal 117 189 63 19

total general 2 ,1 5 3 1 ,5 7 3 1 ,1 0 7 689 5,522 inches

total personal 187 286 73 61 607 in c h e s

% p e r s o n a l 9 18 7 9 11 p e r c e n t

Rank: N in th

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Ronald Reagan is the only president in American history

whose name was widely recognized even before he entered

politics.

But the most compelling aspect of the Reagan story is

his path to the White House. He grew up in a small

Illinois town in a lower-middle-class household led by a

hard-drinking father and a heart-of-gold mother. The

handsome young man worked odd jobs until he landed

full-time work announcing sports on an Iowa radio station.

When he followed the Chicago Cubs to California, he met an

agent who sold the wholesome Midwesterner to Warner

Brothers. Reagan went on to star in "Knute Rockne— All

American," a movie in which his character died of pneumonia

after pleading; "Win one for the Gipper."

Reagan also has the warts that make a personality

come alive. Young Ronald took the nickname "Dutch" because

"Ronald" sounded too sissy. Early in life, he developed

his belief that a woman's place is in the kitchen and the

bedroom. "Dutch" acquired small-town racism and learned

early that only lazy no-goods accept public welfare.

Reagan was too nearsighted to go into combat; so he spent

World War II making Army training films.277

277Tebbel and Watts, 332-34.

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His favorite sections of the newspaper are the comics

and sports, and his favorite magazine is Reader's

Digest.278 He has a short attention span and dislikes

anything remotely intel1ectual.279 Reagan seldom appears

in church. His ex-wife was one of his leading ladies;

their marriage lasted eight years. His second wife was

another of his leading ladies; when she walked down the

aisle, she was several months pregnant. One of Reagan's

most memorable movies was "Bedtime for Bonzo," in which he

costarred with an ape. His movies generally were mediocre.

When his screen career wound down, Reagan promoted products

for General Electric.

Reagan's newsworthy characteristics are heightened by

the fact that he ran for president at a time when the

nation did not want to suffer through another four

agonizing years with a tortured, introspective Jimmy

Carter. Reagan is charming and amiable, funloving and

wisecracking, confident and upbeat, a former lifeguard who

works out every day and goes horseback riding one afternoon

a week, even though he is the oldest president ever to be

elected. He is a nice fellow who bubbles over with amusing

27SLawrence Learner, Make-Believe (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1983), 128.

279prank van der Linden, The Real Reagan (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1981), 97-98.

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stories and one-liners.

William A. Henry wrote in Visions of America; How We

Saw the 1984 Election;

Reaganism was a blend of nostalgia; religious simplicity; patriotic myth; old-fashioned stoic heroism . . . reverence for the family as the mainspring of the society and . . . a general presumption that niceness, affability, normality— being a regular fellow— is the most trustworthy index of decency. . . The unifying power of this kind of Americanism was that it had been experienced by the population in common, and had evoked an unanalytical, emotional response, based on the sensation that deep down, all true Americans share the same values, sympathies, beliefs, c r e e d . 280

Nancy Reagan has been one of her husband's most

trusted and astute political advisers throughout his

political career. She is totally supportive and protective

of her husband. In 1982, history professors ranked Mrs.

Reagan fifteenth among the century's seventeen first

ladies. Her rating would be much higher today, largely

because of her efforts to fight the country's drug abuse

problems.281

The four Reagan children were grown when their father

entered the White House, and very few stories have been

280wiiiiam A. Henry, Visions of America: How We Saw the 1984 Election (Boston; Atlantic Monthly Press, 1985), 5 •

281shearer, 8.

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written about Reagan family activities. Each child has

received some publicity as an individual.

Ronald Reagan's Press Relations

There is no question that members of the press corps

like the personable Reagan and many people would argue that

the press has treated the "teflon" president remarkably

well, but his unparalleled degree of media control has

strained Reagan's relations with the press.

Steven Weisman, New York Times chief White House

correspondent, wrote in 1984:

Central to the President's overall strategy has been his unusual ability to deal with television and print reporters on his own terms— to decide when, where and how he will engage them. In short, the art of controlled access.282

The most debilitating aspect of Reagan's control has

been limited access. The president is virtually never

available for individual interviews, he seldom explains or

expands upon a formal statement, and he has banned

reporters from the staged photo sessions that have become

his primary source of publicity. When he submits to

reporters' questions, Reagan relies on long, circuitous

answers that do not relate to the question asked. He

282 Steven Weisman, "The President and the Press: The Art of Controlled Access," New York Times Magazine. 14 October 1984, 37.

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seldom allows follow-up questions. Reagan sometimes goes

for months without scheduling a press conference, and his

average of six press conferences a year is the lowest of

any president in half a century.

One of the few occasions that the president allows

media access is as he walks across the White House lawn to

a waiting helicopter. CBS senior White House correspondent

Bill Plante wrote:

So the White House press corps is reduced to shouted questions, and that suits the administration just fine. The president can snap back one of his one-liners if he chooses, or make an easy getaway if he doesn't.283

Desperate for live footage of the president, TV

reporters shout questions like a pack of wild animals.

When the Iran-Contra affair shook the White House, the

president evaded reporters' questions by snickering and

feigning laryngitis.

Meanwhile, Reagan public relations people create the

perception that the president is maintaining contact with

the press. "They want the impression of a President who

frequently meets the press, but they are using every device O Q A to control it," said ABC correspondent Sam Donaldson.

^^^Bill Plante, "Why We Were Shouting at the President," Washington Post. 11 October 1987, 7(H).

284Tebbel and Watts, 5 4 2 .

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The epitome of such devices is the photo opportunity,

which the Reagan camp has perfected. The staged sessions

are calculated to portray Reagan as looking presidential.

After a foreign policy blunder, for example, a photo

opportunity showcases Reagan in the Rose Garden with a

visiting head of state.

Reagan has applied the sophisticated techniques of

public relations to the American presidency. The control

he has achieved stands as a monument to the effectiveness

of public relations in impeding news media efforts to

inform the public. Reporters know what the White House

public relations machine is doing, but they are impotent

against the PR professionals. Weisman said:

He and his aides have . . . achieved a new level of control over the mechanics of modern communication— the staging of news events for maximum press coverage, the timing of announcements to hit the largest television audiences. Moreover, the President has displayed his news media artistry at a time when television has become the dominant means by which the public gets its n e w s . 285

Reagan's emphasis on public relations is well

illustrated by his reliance on Larry Speakes, the man who

served the longest as the president's spokesman. Most of

Speakes's experience was as a vice president of a New York

public relations firm. Speakes's briefings deteriorated

Weisman, 35.

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into long, tiresome sessions of little value to the press

corps. And earlier this year, Speakes's kiss-and-tell book

revealed that the spokesman had fabricated quotes and

attributed them to the president without Reagan's approval.

Reagan's most incredible feat of news control came

when he virtually created a war just to reap the public

relations benefits. American forces invaded Grenada, a

tiny dot in the Caribbean, in 1983. More than 6,000

American soldiers opposed some 800 Cubans to prevent

construction of an airport runway and "to rescue" 500

American medical students. Eighteen American soldiers were

killed. From a press point of view, however, the

significance of Grenada is that the Reagan administration

barred the press from covering the invasion until three

days after it had ended.

The act was historically unprecedented and a blatant

violation of the First Amendment. The New York Times

stated:

It has become clear that the Reagan Administration officials and military authorities disseminated much inaccurate information and many unproved assertions. They did so while withholding significant facts and impeding efforts by the journalists to verify official statements.286

For Reagan, reporters had been reduced to spies.

286 The New York Times. 6 November 1983, 1.

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Ronald Reagan's Personal Coverage

The most revealing way to look at the breakdown of

Reagan's personal news coverage is to start with the

smallest category. Reagan is the only twentieth-century

president who did not have a single story written about his

Immediate Family/Homelife Activities. (See Table 44 in the

Appendix) Nor was there a single story about Reagan's

Extended Family. (See Table 50 in the Appendix) The most

alarming observation regarding the absence of any personal

stories about Reagan's family is the fact that, despite

this vacuum, Reagan and his press aides have convinced the

public that he is pro-family. The lack of stories in these

two categories is startling, and yet it is in keeping with

the fact that Reagan and his media advisers have succeeded

in controlling the media to a degree unparalleled in the

history of the American presidency. It is Reagan's image

that is at the center of the personal coverage categories,

not Reagan himself.

Reagan's personal life is so under wraps that he will

not even allow reporters to write about his vacations.

Reagan's Vacations/Personal Travel total was only

forty-nine column inches, less than any president except

the three workaholics— Wilson, Johnson, and Nixon. (See

Table 43 in the Appendix) It is particularly curious that

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Table 40.— Categories of Ronald Reagan's Personal Coverage

NYT LAT SLP-D AC

1982 1983 1982 1983 1982 1983 1982 1983 T o ta l

A 0 0 0 16 0 33 0 0 49 (8$)

B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

C 0 23 0 0 0 0 12 0 35 (6%)

D 16 0 0 88 0 7 21 19 151 (25%)

E 54 94 76 20 10 23 9 0 286 (47%)

F 0 0 0 65 0 0 0 0 65 (11%)

G 0 0 21 0 0 0 0 0 21 (3%)

H 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

607 in c h e s

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so little has been written about Reagan's vacations when

the president often is criticized for taking month-long

trips to his California ranch. Few stories have been

written about activities during these extensive vacations,

however, because relaxation is not part of the desired

presidential image.

Reagan's two largest categories of coverage are

Interaction with Celebrities— 47 percent— and Interaction

with "Little People"— 25 percent. (See Table 42) These

two categories, which are created largely by photo

opportunities staged by the White House, account for almost

three-fourths (72 percent) of Reagan's personal coverage.

These figures show that the press has been flooded

with coverage about the image of Ronald Reagan. Reagan

leads all twentieth century presidents in the Interaction

with "Little People" category (See Table 46 in the

Appendix), a type of story that has become pure creation of

the White House media machine. Reagan's 25 percent figure

in this category is 50 percent higher than the figure for

any other twentieth century president (Teddy Roosevelt's 16

percent) and more than double the figure received by any of

the other recent presidents— Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford

or Carter.

Reagan also was the president who received the most

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coverage in the Interaction with Celebrities category,

which also has become a creation of the White House media

machine. His 47 percent figure far surpasses figures for

any of the other leaders in this category— Nixon with 42

percent. Hoover with 39, Ford with 37, or Carter with 34.

(See Table 47 in the Appendix)

Typical of the Interaction with Celebrities coverage

was a photograph spread over sixteen column inches at the

top of the front page of The New York Times after Secretary

of State George Shultz returned from a four-day trip to the

Middle East.287 The photograph in Reagan's office looked

"presidential," with Reagan in the center talking with

Shultz and surrounded by his secretary of defense, national

security adviser, and another top adviser. Typical of the

other most common type of celebrity coverge was a

photograph that appeared in the Times after Reagan signed a

gasoline bill.288 To create this scene, Reagan invited

the Senate Majority Leader and other senators into his

office. The photograph of the senators applauding the

president after the signing ran at the top of the front

page of the Times.

Reagan received more coverage through Interaction

287The New York Times. 9 July 1983, 1.

288The New York Times. 7 January 1983, 1.

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with "Little People" than did any other twentieth-century

president. (See Table 46 in the Appendix) Reagan's

technique of securing this type of personal coverage was at

its height after the Grenada invasion. One Los Angeles

Times photograph showed Reagan and a marine from the

Grenada force exchanging military salutes during a "welcome

home" ceremony two weeks after the invasion. 289 The

photograph covered twenty-five column inches. Another

photograph showed Reagan with some of the students who had

been evacuated from Grenada. The caption read:

President Reagan on Monday told nearly 500 cheering, flag-waving American medical students who were evacuated from Grenada that he was upset by all the "smug, know-it-all" types who questioned the danger the students were in and the U.S. decision to invade the i s l a n d . 2 9 0

Curiously, the first photo ran on the same page as a

news story that began;

The news blackout President Reagan imposed on the Grenada invasion— an extension of his earlier attempts to control government information— has undermined the credibility of White House press operations and established a precedent for restricting public information on military operations.291

289 Los Angeles Times, "Reagan with Marine from Grenada Force," 7 November 1983, 1.

2 9 Ql o s Angeles Times. "Students Meet Reagan, Cheer Grenada Action," 8 November 1983, 1.

291l o s Angeles Times. 7 November 1983, 1.

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Only with the third largest category of Reagan's

personal coverage— the 11 percent in Personal

Idiosyncrasies— does the reader begin to see Reagan's real

personality. One extraordinary piece covered sixty-five

column inches in the Sunday Los Angeles Times.

George Skelton, whose relationship with Reagan extended

back to his days as governor of California, wrote the very

favorable story about Reagan's future plans. The story

began:

At age 72, President Reagan looks into his future and says he sees continued fulfillment and good health if he serves another term in the White House. America's oldest President says he is prepared to spend most of his remaining years championing causes and convictions from the gilded cage of the world's most powerful elected office— rather than relaxing in privacy and savoring a lifetime of success .29 2

Social Life was a significant category for Reagan.

Although the stories accounted for only 6 percent of

Reagan's personal news coverage, that percentage was the

third highest of any president. (See Table 45 in the

Appendix) Only Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft

received more Social Life coverage.

7Q9 ^^^Los Angeles Times. "Reagan Sees Fulfillment in Second Term," 3 July 1983, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VII

TELEVISION NEWS

This pioneering examination of personal news coverage

from the White House has revealed a paradox. On the one

hand, the widely held perception is that White House

reporters, during the last two decades, have become

preoccupied with personal news about the president of the

United States. On the other hand, the quantitative data

collected for this ground-breaking study of personal news

from the White House show that the very definite trend

actually has been in the opposite direction— toward less

personal coverage from the White House. Why do people

think there has been such a huge expansion of personal

coverage of the president if the coverage actually has

decreased? Why is the perception so very different from

reality? What has created this false impression that is so

pervasive among both the general public and the community

of presidential scholars?

The questions may be best answered by a poignant

anecdote that illustrates the state of American journalism

306

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in the late twentieth century. During the 1984

presidential campaign, CBS News White House correspondent

Lesley Stahl put together a four-and-a-half minute story to

show how the White House stages events. Stahl said:

It was a very tough piece, showing how they were trying to create public amnesia about some of the issues that had turned against Reagan. . . . I was very nervous about going back to the White House the next day. But the show was no more than off the air, when a White House official called me and congratulated me on it and said he'd loved it. I said, "How could you love it?" And he said, "Haven't you figured it out yet? The public doesn't pay any attention to what you say. They just look at the p i c t u r e s . "293

Stahl looked at the piece again, with the sound off.

She then saw that the visuals supporting her biting

commentary had created a montage of Reagan with flags,

balloons, children, and adoring supporters. She

inadvertently had broadcast what amounted to an unpaid

campaign commercial.

The White House official's words are prophetic: "The

public doesn't pay any attention to what you say. They

just look at the pictures." Those two sentences and the

dichotomy they represent capture the essence of why today's

press has been wrongly perceived as having become

preoccupied with personal coverage from the White House.

293 ^^•^Broder, 181-82.

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Just as the visuals on the screen overwhelmed the words

coming out of Stahl's mouth, television's constant airing

of footage depicting trivial activities of the president

overwhelms the substantive coverage of the president that

is published in daily newspapers.

White House media relations experts know the networks

need fresh footage daily to run with their stories out of

Washington, the news capital of the world. The conventions

of network news demand that film on the screen must be shot

the same day that it is broadcast because currency provides

television with its competitive edge over newspapers. So

every day the White House media machine makes sure that the

networks have only enough access to the president to obtain

footage that promotes the desired presidential image.

Anchors and correspondents may speak critically in their

reports, as Stahl did, but the White House controls what

images appear on the television screen and, therefore, what

images the viewer remembers.

Presidential advisers recognize the importance of

television visuals. "One hundred million people across

this country get all of their news from network

television," said Michael K. Deaver, Reagan's deputy chief

of staff during his first term. "The whole (White House

media) business is now so influenced by network

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television."294

The president's media advisers choose to give the

television cameras access only to the events that will

enhance the president's image. The ultimate goal is, of

course, that all footage shows the president in a positive

light. Specifically, many of the events created for the

television cameras are designed to engender sympathy for

the president. The most frequent image of this type shows

the aged president walking out of the White House to go to

a meeting or public appearance . . . but being besieged by

aggressive reporters screaming harsh questions at him. The

White House creates this situation by providing reporters

with so little access to the president that they have no

other time to ask him questions. Another familiar image is

of the tired president trying to board a helicopter and

escape the heavy responsibilities of his office through a

weekend respite . . . but again being badgered by the mad

dogs of the White House press corps. In both cases, the

most memorable image is of the aged, beleaguered president

cupping his ear, trying valiantly to hear the vicious

reporters' questions, but finally having to give up and

walk onward.

Other events are staged to tell voters that the

2 9 broder, 180-81.

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president has returned the country to an era of simple

pleasures and traditional values . . . the good old days

when life was simpler, and better. To create this

impression, the White House allows the television cameras

to "catch" the president kissing the first lady, embracing

a child, or engaged in light-hearted conversation with

other world leaders.

The common factor in all these scenes— whether they

show the president being hounded by reporters or the

president kissing his wife— is that they do not depict

substantive issues. Rare is the television footage that

shows the president allowing the budget deficit to grow

ever larger or the possibility of nuclear holocaust to

continue to threaten mankind. Instead, the footage is

dominated by scenes depicting the president engaged in

trivial activities that can be classified as nothing but

coverage of his personality or personal life . . . creating

the perception that the media cover nothing but personal

news from the White House.

In the final analysis, then, the White House deserves

primary responsibility for creating the false impression

that the news media cover nothing but presidential

minutiae. White House media advisers know that personal

coverage enhances the presidential image. So they flood

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the television screen with footage focusing on the

president's personality and personal life.

Because of television's desire to show compelling

visuals, the line between "hard news" and "personal news"

often is blurred. For example, on March 7, 1982, "NBC

Nightly News" aired a four-minute report that the anchor

summarized with the statement: "President Reagan

met with Republican senators today regarding conflicts

within the party over the federal budget." But the footage

that appeared on the screen gave no indication of conflict.

The film showed Reagan addressing businessmen at the White

House. The most memorable moment came when the businessmen

applauded and Reagan playfully slapped his own face and 9Q5 said, "Thanks, I needed that." The residual effect of

the report most certainly was a positive one epitomized by

the president's clever one-liner.

The proliferation of televised scenes such as Reagan

slapping his face and making a joke means that television

must share some of the blame, along with the White House,

for the overabundance of personal coverage. It is

understandable that television news is tempted to cooperate

295Television News Index and Abstracts: A Guide to the Videotape Collection of the Network Evenincr News Programs in the Vanderbilt Television News Archive. Vanderbilt University Library, Nashville, Tenn., 7 March 1982.

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with the White House media machine's clever techniques.

For such scenes do, indeed, make compelling television.

But when such visuals mislead the public and distort

reality, as they did when Reagan slapped himself

overshadowed the fact that the president and fellow

Republicans disagreed over the federal budget, television

news is being irresponsible.

The simple reality is that television news is much

better at covering personalities and shallow topics than it

is at covering substantive issues.

James David Barber wrote in The Pulse of Politics;

The fragmented brevity of television news sends the message by too fast to call the mind into play. . . . Emotion is quicker but shallower. A parade of impressions jogs gently along the edge of attention, barely disturbing the rational f a c u l t i e s .296

Many print journalists have made this point when

critics have attacked today's journalism as being dominated

by superficial reporting. Time magazine's Laurence I.

Barrett said;

Because of television, the public's tolerance for long, detailed, contextual reporting has decreased. Television can get pictures to the public fast, which is great for covering plane crashes and assassinations. But that kind of improvement does not help when it comes to

2 9 6 Barber, The Pulse of Politics. 320.

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explaining the meaning of, for instance, "Star Wars."297

If the White House provided nothing but statements

about complex issues of domestic or foreign policy,

television news would be constantly defeated in its

competition with the daily newspaper, which has more space

to describe, to analyze, and to explain such issues.

"We just can't handle issues the way newspapers can,"

said Richard Kaplan, a producer for CBS. "A writer can go

into all kinds of detail to explain things. We have to

have something on that film. And you've got ninety seconds

to tell it.As an example, Kaplan told of the time

Jimmy Carter proposed that the terms of the president and

the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board should coincide.

Journalists considered the proposal a significant one,

suggesting Carter was trying to politicize the Federal

Reserve Board. "We never reported that," Kaplan said. "We

couldn't figure a way to do it on television. What do you

show, people sitting around a table?"^^^ TV news simply

has no tolerance for complex explanations. So it

relies— at least for its visuals— almost exclusively on

297çenter Magazine^ 32.

2 9 SiîcCartney, 18.

2 9 9 i b i d .

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personal coverage from the White House.

Although the current study is based primarily on

newspaper coverage, the crucial role of television news in

creating this false impression demands that the study also

include— to at least a limited extent— television coverage

of White House personal news. In so doing, however, it

must be noted that this study's examination of television

coverage does not claim to be as comprehensive as its

study of newspaper coverage. Indeed, a quantitative study

devoted entirely to television's depiction of personal news

from the White House very well could produce results very

different from those produced by the limited examination of

television included as part of the current study.

In 1971, Vanderbilt University began recording

nightly news programs. Using those archives, the current

study examined presidential news coverage on ABC, CBS, and

NBC during the sample periods. That examination found that

television coverage of the president— or at least of the

president's desired image— has become a staple of network

news during the last two decades. In 1971, Nixon's image

appeared on the screen during 83 percent of the evening

news programs. The figures for the three most recent

presidents were much higher— never slipping below 96

percent for Ford, Carter, or Reagan. (See Table 41) In

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Table 41.— Television News Coverage from the White House*

ABC CBS NBC total percent

Nixon (1971) 36 32 37 105 83 percent

Ford (1975) 42 42 39 122 (1976) 39 40 40 119

96 percent

Carter (1978) 40 42 42 124 (1979) 40 41 41 122

98 percent

Reagan (1982) 42 40 40 122 (1983) 42 41 40 123

97 percent

*The sample period, consistent with methodology used throughout this study, consisted of the first week of January, March, May, July, September, and November for the middle two years of a president's first term. The sample period for each year, therefore, included network news programs on forty-two nights. Numbers in each column indicate how many of those forty-two programs placed the president's image on the television screen. During the forty-two nights sampled for 1971, for example, ABC carried Nixon's image on thirty-six nights.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 316

other words, the 50 million Americans who watch television

news on any given night are bombarded with examples of

White House personal coverage twenty-four out of every

twenty-five nights.

The total length of footage of White House personal

coverge also has mushroomed. Television screens carried

Nixon's image for 14,000 seconds during the 1971 sample

period; they carried Carter's image for 33,000 second

during the 1979 sample period. That means that network

television's personal news coverage from the White House

increased 136 percent during the 1970s. (See Table 42)

And coverage has continued to soar in the 1980s, soar, with

Reagan's figure rising 30 percent higher than Carter's.

Again it must be emphasized that the presidential

image that appears on the screen is provided on the

president's own terms. The networks accept the terms

because, without visuals, television does not exist. As a

matter of fact, when the president invites the cameras into

the Oval Office to film him kissing the first lady or

embracing a handicapped child, network executives have

reason for elation. For with such fabrications of news,

television coverage will be far more compelling than will

newspaper coverage. Television news, because it is a

visual phenomenon, places an incredible amount of emphasis

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Table 42.— Television News Coverage of the Presidential Image*

ABC CBS NBC total

Nixon (1971) 6,110 4,825 3,220 14,155

Ford (1975) 8,970 9,200 7,580 25,750 (1976) 8,045 7,750 6,585 22,380

48,130

Carter (1978) 9,745 10,415 8,010 28,170 (1979) 12,530 10,585 9,915 33,030

61,200

Reagan (1982) 15,205 17,060 14,220 46,485 (1983) 12,490 12,125 8,725 33,340

79,825

*A11 figures represent seconds of air time during which the president's image appeared on the screen.

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on the personalities that can be captured so much better on

color film than on black ink applied to white paper.

It is no coincidence that criticism regarding an

overemphasis on White House personal news developed

simultaneously with the growth of television news in the

1960s. During the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign, television

news was in its infancy. At campaign press conferences,

television correspondents were placed in the rear. They

were mere observers, stenographers on hand to record the

minutes. Television correspondents measured their

performance by whether or not they emphasized the same

points that print reporters did. But in 1961, White House

press conferences were broadcast live for the first time.

The tables turned. By the early 1970s, television

had become the most powerful medium in the history of the

world, and presidents catered to its needs. The Vanderbilt

summary for the CBS newscast of for July 9, 1970, stated;

"CBS President Frank Stanton says Nixon given more TV time

in first 18 months than former Presidents John Kennedy,

Lyndon Johnson or Dwight Eisenhower's first 18 months

c o m b i n e d . "300 Television correspondents were placed in

the front of the press corps during press conferences,

while print reporters had to fight for turf in the rear.

SOÛTelevision News Index, 9 July 1970.

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As early as 1955, there were signs that television

had changed American politics. In that year, the chairman

of the Republican National Committee discussed the impact

of television. "We must choose able and personable 3m candidates who can 'sell themselves' (on television),"

he said. The overwhelming influence of television clearly

has changed the type of people who enter politics today.

Neil Postman, a New York University professor who studies

how communication affects people, wrote in 1985:

In the age of television, people do not so much agree or disagree with politicians as they like or dislike them. . . . Ideas are irrelevant to political success.302

A fat person cannot be a major candidate today.

Postman said, because a fat person's unpleasant image

overwhelms any profound statements that might come out of

his or her mouth. Postman said:

Politics in America is not the Federalist Papers. It is not the Lincoln-Douglas debates. It is not even Roosevelt's fireside chats. . . . Politics is good looks and amiability. It is fast-moving imagery— a quick tempo— a good show— celebrities. Because of this it is even possible that someday a Hollywood movie actor may become President of the United S t a t e s . 303

BOlBarber, The Pulse of Politics. 279

302postman, 25.

3 0 3 i b i d .

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One of the most valuable products of this study,

then, becomes an answer to the question: Have American

newspapers of the late twentieth century "caved in" to

television by idolizing the presidential image? This

study's major finding— that personal news coverage of

recent presidents has not increased but actually has

decreased— clearly answers that question. If daily

newspapers had succumbed to the economic and societal

pressures of today's television culture, the personal

coverage percentages of recent presidents would be much

higher than the percentages of presidents who served before

the age of television. The data firmly assert that the

daily press— the bastion of American journalism— is not

saturating the American public with personal coverage of

the president. Major newspapers in this country have not

caved in.

Specific instances of news coverage support this

observation. For example, in 1982 the Washington Post

published an article about a cross being burned in the yard

of a black family living in a white neighborhood in

suburban Maryland. Later that day, the president and first

lady visited the couple's home. The visit clearly was

designed to enhance Reagan's image as a man concerned with

the plight of minorities. All three networks bought the

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White House media event. ABC devoted ninety seconds to the

story, and CBS and NBC both gave it 100 seconds.304

None of the four newspapers, however, placed the story on

the front page. The Los Angeles Times, for example,

grouped the five-inch story with two other stories and ran

them under a "Newsmakers" label, and The New York Times

relegated the story to page B 8 .

A year later, the newspapers did more than downplay a

similar White House media event. On the afternoon of

February 4, 1983, White House officials notified the

television networks that President Reagan would hold a mini

press conference beginning half an hour later. But after

the session began and Reagan answered one question, the

first lady walked in with a cake for her husband's birthday

two days later. Even when the networks realized they had

been had, they continued to carry the birthday party. NBC

stayed with the event for twenty-three minutes— longer than

it would devote to its entire coverage of national and

international events that evening. All three networks also

included film from the birthday party in their evening news

programs that night, several hours after the White House

trick had been exposed.

But The New York Times covered the event from a very

304Television News Index, 3 May 1982.

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different angle, stressing that the "news event" had been

staged. The Times reported that all three networks

complained to the White House that they had been misled

about an event that obviously had been well planned. The

story quoted a senior vice president of ABC News as saying,

"Under the general auspices of a press conference, they had

a photo opportunity and a promotional effort." The story

went on to report that some network officials felt they had

been manipulated. "We got suckered," the story quoted one

as saying. "We deal with them (the Administration) on the

basis of trust and they were misusing that trust. When

they do that they serve the Presidency badly."^05

Both the quantitative data and specific incidents

produce the same conclusion: Daily newspapers have

continued to be the custodians of substance and issues,

providing the detailed coverage that only they can offer

the American voter. Even though television places the

president's image before 50 million Americans every night,

newspapers have not shifted their focus to the

personalities and personal lives of presidents. Newspapers

have not flooded the American public with personal news

from the White House. Indeed, this comprehensive study has

305 Sally Bedell, "For TV, a Surprise Forces Decisions," The New York Times. 5 February 1983, 8 .

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identified a strong and sustained trend toward major

newspapers devoting less space to personal coverage from

the White House.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VIII

CONCLUSIONS

"The media are preoccupied with personality, tending

in particular to overpersonalize the presidency."

— Ben W. Heineman Jr., political activist, 1980

"I would like for you all, as people who relay

Washington events to the world, to take a look at the

substantive questions . . . and quit dealing almost

exclusively with personalities."

— President Jimmy Carter, press briefing, 1979

These and other quotations in the introduction to

this study illustrate that presidential observers— from

historians to political scientists to politicians— believe

that today's White House reporters have become preoccupied

with personal news. But this quantitative study has shown

that, in reality, the trend has been in the opposite

direction. Personal news has not kept pace with the daily

newspaper's mushrooming coverage of substantive issues

emanating from the White House press corps. Although

324

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television news has magnified the presidential image,

newspaper stories about the president's personality and

personal life have accounted for a progressively smaller

percentage of front-page news from the White House.

This study challenges the press critics and refutes

their claims that today's reporters are obsessed with

transforming presidential minutiae into front-page news.

The challenge is based not on rhetoric or a handful of

personal stories that have appeared within the last decade.

Instead, this study systematically analyzed how four major

newspapers covered this century's fifteen presidents,

examining some 74,000 column inches of coverage to create

the first comprehensive study of White House personal news.

This study's major contributions to existing

scholarship fit into two categories: methodology and

substance. With regard to methodology, this study enlarges

and broadens the previous body of press-president

scholarship by taking a step that earlier work has not

taken. Previous research has relied exclusively on

impressions and anecdotal material. No press-president

scholar has tested his or her theories by measuring

White House news coverage.

This pioneering study has advanced press-president

research significantly by applying quantitative methods to

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this field of research. Through this methodologically

innovative study, theories about White House press

relations have been tested as never before.

The quantitative data gathered in this study support

and strengthen some of the most significant scholarship on

the press-president relationship. The data confirm, for

example, that coverage soared early this century. This

finding is consistent with George Juergens's conclusion

that the White House first became a primary source of human

interest stories during the Progressive Era. Likewise,

this study's assertion that presidents manipulate personal

coverage by controlling the amount of access they allow

reporters confirms John Tebbel and Sarah Miles Watts's

thesis that the presidency has become an imperialistic

institution that often manipulates the media. In

addition, results of this study confirm Tebbel and Watts's

identification of Nixon and Reagan as the two presidents

who have limited their media access most severely.

With regard to substantive contributions, this study

challenges the existing theories regarding personal news

about the president. Indeed, the results of this study

demand that historians, political scientists, politicians,

journalists, and the general public change their thinking

regarding how the press treats personal news from

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the White House. This study— the first scholarly research

focusing specifically on its topic— refutes all previous

theories about presidential personal news.

For example, this study destroys George E. Reedy's

argument that the president can guarantee universal

newspaper play merely by distributing a trivial photograph

or a list of his routine activities. For this study

demonstrates that today's newspapers do not automatically

publish every piece of trivia distributed by the White

House publicity machine. The current study simultaneously

destroys Daniel P. Moynihan's assertion that the president

has an unlimited ability to "make news." In light of this

study, Moynihan's statement is valid only if it is amended

to specify that the president can "make television news."

The current study also takes exception to the belief

that journalistic interest in presidential trivia is a

recent phenomenon. Washington journalists James Deakin and

James McCartney have dated the beginning of this interest

to 1959 and 1976, respectively. But this study found

numerous examples of insignificant detail about the

president that were published early in the twentieth

century, with some dating back to the 1886 wedding of

Grover Cleveland. These examples prove that "junk news" is

not a recent invention.

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Above all, this study's illuminating and challenging

discovery demands that presidential observers no longer

cavalierly criticize today's press as being preoccupied

with presidential personalities and personal trivia. After

the findings of this study, political scientists such as

George C. Edwards III and Stephen J. Wayne no longer are

justified in casually making a remark such as this one from

their 1985 book: "Coverage of presidential election

campaigns is basically trivial."3^^ Nor are members of the

journalistic craft acting responsibly if they make a

blanket statement such as this one from Deakin's 1984 book:

"Most journalists and news organizations are superficial."307

Insights gained from the current study also call for

historians to reassess individual presidents. Specifically,

historians generally have concluded that Warren G. Harding

and Calvin Coolidge contributed virtually nothing to the

evolution of the presidency. The two men have been

ridiculed as two of the most ineffective presidents in

American history. The current study has suggested

otherwise. Analysis has shown that Harding and Coolidge

amassed huge quantities of personal news coverage partly

because of significant innovations in dealing with the

Edwards and Wayne, 156.

307Deakin, 311.

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press. The two men were not "do-nothing" presidents. They

subtly brought about changes that ultimately revolutionized

White House press relations. Harding introduced the

concept of press accommodations; Coolidge introduced the

forerunner of today's photo opportunity.

The discovery of a previously unrecognized trend of

major dimension demands the exploration of the factors that

have brought about that trend. This study's discovery that

American newspapers have progressively reduced the amount of

front-page space allotted to personal news from the White

House, therefore, demands discussion of the various factors

that have affected the publication of presidential news

stories.

One important observation is that today's major

newspapers are created with a higher degree of

professionalism than those of the past. Early in the

century, decisions regarding what stories were printed

often were made in a haphazard fashion by a single editor

burdened with a wide variety of responsibilities. For an

editor hurriedly deciding what stories should be placed on

the front page, the major considerations were what was

available and what was most likely to grab the attention of

the masses of uneducated, unsophisticated factory workers

who constituted most of a daily newspaper's readership. The

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strong political leanings of early twentieth-century

newspapers also influenced decisions regarding presidential

news coverage.

Today, however, creating and packaging a major daily

newspaper has become a complex, specialized, professional

operation. Before the content of the front page of any of

the newspapers examined in this study is determined, some

two dozen editors, department heads, and other decision

makers consult in three or more formal meetings— not to

mention frequent impromptu sessions— designated for that

particular purpose. And with the vast resources of a huge

corporation and a worldwide network of news outlets such as

news services, syndicates, and a network of reporters based

around the globe, there is never a concern about not having

sufficient material to cover the front page. Material

available to the four newspapers today would cover hundreds

of pages.

Editorial decisions involved in selecting which news

items deserve Page One prominence are sophisticated and

thorough. They are based on news values such as fairness,

timeliness, the number of people affected, economic

ramifications, and an event or issue's proximity to the

city in which the newspaper is published. Decisions also

are influenced by knowledge of reader demographics and

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coverage by advertising and circulation competitors. Also

considered are writing quality, interpretive emphasis,

avoidance of sensationalism, effectiveness of design, and

the mix of elements represented on the front page. In

addition, decisions are based on the newspaper's commitment

to world consciousness, social welfare, and cultural

endeavors, as well as the newspaper's effort to educate its

readership and influence local, national, and world

leaders.

Decisions are in the hands of sophisticated,

well-educated, vastly experienced, highly specialized,

well-paid men and women who have been successful at

climbing to elite status within a very competitive

profession. As shown by the data collected for this study,

such responsible professional journalists only rarely

decide that an item about the president's personality or

personal life merits placement on Page One.

A second factor that has shaped the trend toward less

personal coverage develops from the first in that today's

journalistic professionalism dictates that White House

stories placed on the front page must be newsworthy. But

the men most recently elected to lead this country

generally have not been newsworthy— at least not when

compared to the men elected earlier in the century. These

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presidents may have images that make them electable, but

most of them have not possessed qualities that, according

to the conventions of journalism, make them subjects of

compelling news stories.

"Newsworthiness" is a difficult concept to define,

but qualities that can help create a newsworthy individual

certainly include being robust, outgoing, and dynamic and

having a unique personal style. A newsworthy individual

also tends to be youthful and somewhat unpredictable, with

a variety of interests and unusual facets to his or her

personality.

As discussed in the sections of this study devoted to

individual presidents, several men who served early this

century were unusually newsworthy. Teddy Roosevelt was

larger than life; the youthful war hero and former cowboy

took on mythical proportions. Woodrow Wilson's unique

personal style blended the traits of the son of a

Presbyterian minister, an inspirational orator, and an

idealistic intellectual, becoming the prophet who would

lead his country toward world peace while romancing a

curvaceous Washington widow and dreaming of a career in

vaudeville. And Franklin Roosevelt— animated jocular, and

manipulative— displayed a lust for life and a degree of

charm that mesmerized the whole nation.

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By contrast, recent presidents have tended not to

have robust, outgoing personalities. Richard Nixon,

perhaps the first of the recent presidents who lacked the

qualities that make individuals newsworthy, is a secretive,

hypersensitive, untrusting narcissist who cannot relax with

hobbies or recreational activities. Gerald Ford is a slow,

plodding, unimaginative, inarticulate man who dislikes

change and falls somewhere between bland and dull. Jimmy

Carter is an introspective, self-righteous, humorless,

narrow-minded religious fundamentalist who was too lacking

in confidence to lead the most complex government on the

globe.

A third factor contributing to the trend toward fewer

personal stories is the fact that many recent presidents

have not been willing to give reporters liberal access to

the White House and its occupants. The more frequently

reporters see and interact with the president, the more

often they can catch glimpses of his personality and

personal life to translate into personal news stories.

Presidents who served early in the century opened the

gates to the White House and welcomed reporters into their

personal lives. Teddy Roosevelt created a press room inside

the White House and developed a "boys-club" style of dealing

with reporters. Wilson established the presidential news

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conference to maintain regular contact with reporters.

Harding, as a presidential candidate, built a house

expressly for reporters covering his campaign and later, as

president, played poker with them inside the White House.

Coolidge spoke candidly with reporters and maintained an

open-door policy throughout his administration. Franklin

Roosevelt carried press access to a record high by leading

a remarkable eighty-three press conferences each of his

dozen years in office; he also invited reporters to the

White House for Sunday night supper.

Recent presidents, on the other hand, have reduced

reporter access, building an impenetrable wall around their

true personalities and personal lives. The current gap

between the White House and the press corps began with

Lyndon Johnson's decision to lie to reporters about his

Vietnam policy. Nixon allowed reporters virtually no

access to him or his family, treating reporters as mortal

enemies and dropping the average number of press

conferences to seven a year, lower than any president in

half a century. Carter grew to loathe reporters and to

blame them for his political demise, not holding a single

press conference during his last four months in office.

And Ronald Reagan has perfected the art of controlled

access, refusing to deal with reporters except on his

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terms, which largely consist of reporters screaming

questions at him while being held at a distance like

would-be assassins.

The findings of a cross-disciplinary study such as

this one have repercussions in several different areas.

In particular, results of this study have meaning for

American newspapers, the institution of the American

presidency, and the country itself.

With regard to American newspapers, this study is

extremely significant. During an era in which various

elements of society— including the voting public— are

questioning whether or not the American press is fulfilling

its proper role, the importance of new evidence of

professionalism within the Fourth Estate cannot be

overemphasized. The findings of this study provide such

evidence. Indeed, this study proves that twentieth century

American newspapers have become increasingly professional,

sophisticated, discriminating in their selection of

front-page news. Personal coverage data show that

newspapers have become much more selective regarding which

incidents in the president's life merit presentation on

Page One. Faced with myriad sources of information,

today's reporters, editors, and publishers proceed

systematically and responsibly in determining which items

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deserve to be displayed on the most prominent page of the

newspaper.

The resultant change is best illustrated by reviewing

some of the personal stories published early in the

century. For example, Coolidge personal coverage included

a New York Times article that could be a textbook example

of trivial detail. The twenty-eight-inch story carried

four decks of headlines: "MOSQUITOS KEEP COOLIDGE

INDOORS," "Force Him to Forego an Evening Walk After Rain

Prevents Earlier Outing," "BIG FISH STIRS SKEPTICS," and

"Some Question Its Size, Now 4 Pounds, and

Species"President May End Mystery T o d a y . "^08 The story

began:

After being kept indoors today in White Pine Camp by rain. President Coolidge was driven back indoors again this evening by the mosquitos when he attempted to venture forth in the cool of the evening for his usual walk before dinner. The President slept from 2 P.M. to 6 P.M. The fifty Marines guarding the President, most of whom have had service in the World War, said the mosquitos were worse than the 'cooties.'

The six paragraphs devoted to speculation regarding

the president's fishing success included minute detail:

President Coolidge at tomorrow's press conference is expected to clear up the mystery and furnish the details of the Presidential

308 The New York Times. "Mosquitos Keep Coolidge Indoors," 9 July 1926, 1.

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onslaught on the denizens of Lake Osgood. Today one heard plenty of details at the lodge gate at White Pine Camp. The most credible was that the Preisdent, seeing (fishing guide) Oscar Otis at the wharf, expressed a wish to be rowed about the lake. Oscar got the boat ready and informed Mr. Coolidge that he always trailed a line. He handed the President a rod, but the President, rapt in his gaze at the shore line and the lofty mountains, let his line run through the water a hundred feet astern. Suddenly the President shouted, so the story goes, "I am caught.” Oscar stopped the boat and felt the taut line. His experience told him that a fish had bit the hook. He handed the rod back to the President and told him to pull in slowly. That he did. Suddenly, fifty feet astern, a slender, quivering body split the water. The President is reported to have retained his poise and devoted himself to landing his prize. The pole bent and the reel sang and within five minutes the pike was alongside the boat and in the net slipped under him by Oscar. According to Oscar, the President showed no excitement as the fish leaped and the reel sang that aria that is music to the real fisherman. He made it a serious business getting that fish into the board.

If used on the front page of one of today's major

newspapers, such an overwritten, rambling account would be

reduced to a paragraph. Such inconsequential detail

certainly would not merit twenty-eight inches of space.

More representative of today's newspaper coverage

from the White House is the last personal story in this

study published in the Atlanta Constitution. The headline

for the story read; "Worker leaves job Reagan got for

him." The story, which carried a Pittsburgh dateline.

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began: "The laid-off steelworker who gave his resume to

President Reagan and landed a White House-arranged 309 electronics job quit after two months." Editors at the

Constitution devoted a mere seven inches to the United

Press International story— only one fourth the space New

York Times editors had given the Coolidge story half a

century earlier.

At the same time, an argument could be made that the

brief story was far from trivial. For the critical reader

could interpret the story as pointing out that Reagan's

gesture, which may have been an example of sophisticated

public relations strategy rather than compassion, had

failed. The tone of the headline and story suggested that

Reagan's technique had backfired and now was giving the

president negative publicity that counteracted the original

positive publicity.

The larger significance of the story, then, is that

today's major newspapers devote less space to personal news

stories and yet those stories provide more substantive

insight into the president. With personal coverage in

today's newspapers, therefore, less is more. Personal

coverage has become more substantive and more intense. The

309Atlanta Constitution. "Worker leaves job Reagan got him," 3 July 1983, 1.

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evolution of personal coverage has moved from an emphasis

on quantity to an emphasis on quality.

With regard to the presidency, this study is both

significant and encouraging. For the findings indicate

that today's voters can turn to their daily newspaper for a

succinct reflection of the values, personal priorities, and

true character of the man who is leading their country.

The president's ability to control and to dictate personal

coverage in the daily newspaper has been drastically

reduced, largely by the strengthening of journalistic

professionalism and, more specifically, an increasing

intensity that newspapers are placing on personal news

coverage of presidents and would-be presidents. The elite

of the journalism profession who make crucial decisions

regarding which stories receive front-page treatment in

this country's major daily newspapers do not make their

decisions without care, thought, and analysis of the value

of every story. In order for a personal news item from the

White House to reach Page One, that item must be

substantive. It must provide insight into the president's

personality or character. In short, today's front-page

personal coverage generally is substantive, not trivial.

Presidents who served early this century hid major

character flaws and incidents of poor judgment from the

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American people. These realities did not become public

because of a deference to the institution of the

presidency, because of societal taboos regarding the

publication of certain types of information, and because of

journalistic conventions that stood in the way of public

exposure of information that might— in the short term— seem

detrimental to the president and the country.

So voters in the 1920s never knew of Harding's love

affairs or tendency to be manipulated by his friends. Nor

did the voters of the 1930s and 1940s know of Franklin

Roosevelt's physical paralysis or marital infidelity. Even

as recently as twenty-five years ago, newspaper reporters

did not write about Kennedy's insatiable sexual appetite

and the vulnerable positions he placed himself in because

of that compulsion, some evidence of which was not exposed

until earlier this year.

Results of this study indicate, however, that news

conventions have changed and that today's newspapers are

far more conscious of the accuracy of the presidential

portrait their front pages are painting. Recent newspapers

have not been easily manipulated into flooding their front

pages with presidential minutiae that masks true

personality, character, and values.

Revelations published during the 1988 presidential

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campaign offer testimony that today's reporters, operating

in a climate of intense coverage of personal news,

investigate behavior that may illuminate the character of

presidential hopefuls. Recurring rumors about Gary Hart's

sexual liaisons propelled reporters to suggest that the

Democratic front runner may have been an adulterer, a man

so reckless that he risked his political future for a

one-night stand. Newspaper stories about Hart's affair

with a 29-year-old model ended his political career long

before he otherwise may have won the presidency. A few

months later, stories about Sen. Joseph Biden exposed the

dynamic orator as a man who "borrowed" paragraphs,

verbatim, from other politicians. Then the press reported

that Biden had been disciplined for plagiarizing portions

of a law review article and had inflated his academic

record during a campaign appearance. Biden withdrew from

the campaign a year before he, too, may have been elected

to national leadership.

Based on these precedents, Harding, if he were in the

White House today, would not be allowed to camouflage his

character flaws with long-winded stories about Florida

vacations and outings with his "Duchess"— the most frequent

types of personal stories published during the Harding

years. Nor would Franklin Roosevelt succeed in covering

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the front page with stories that characterized him as a

robust sportsman and devoted husband. Neither would

Kennedy and his relatives be able to charm journalists into

turning Washington into a modern-day fantasy land where

infidelity did not exist.

A citizen who is willing to invest time and effort

into reading the daily newspaper has access to sufficient

material on which to base sound, informed conclusions

regarding the real values and character of presidents and

presidential hopefuls.

The findings of this study also benefit the country

itself. By destroying the myth that the press gives the

public nothing but trivia from the White House, this study

proves that the Fourth Estate, with regard to personal news

about the president, is fulfilling its proper role in a

democratic state. Personal stories in today's newspapers

reflect the true character and values of the president,

providing voters with substantive information. Through

this coverage, responsible voters are presented with

insights that can help them decide if they will continue to

be led by a man who possesses a particular set of values

and characterisitcs or if they will choose new leadership

that may reflect different values and characteristics.

Such insights into the president are crucial. For

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the fundamental characteristics that define a man— honor,

integrity, loyalty, honesty, maturity, courage— cannot be

separated from the stand that he takes on important issues.

These are the characteristics that ultimately direct the

fate of the country . . . of the world . . . of mankind

itself. It is these characteristics that ultimately

determine how a president will respond to crucial

decisions, such as whether or not to enter a world war or

to initiate nuclear holocaust.

Bruce Buchanan, a government professor at the

University of Texas, wrote in The New York Times last year

that it is vital for the media to cover the character of

presidential candidates. Buchanan said:

Forget what candidates say they will do if elected. Never mind what public offices they have held. Look instead to the kinds of people they are. . . . It is bedrock human nature, not campaign promises or track records, that gives the surest forecast of a Presidency. 310

Sociologist Herbert Cans made a similar point.

Gans said:

Politicians don't talk about issues that the voters actually care about. So voters look for a way of answering the question: "Which of these characters can I trust with myself and my country

310 Bruce Buchanan, "Open All Candidates Before Election," The New York Times. 2 October 1987, 35.

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two years from now, when something important happens?"311

History shows that character has, indeed, been a

decisive factor in the success of this century's greatest

presidents. For example, it was not Franklin Roosevelt's

programs or policies that pulled the country out of

depression. Historians such as Paul Conkin have documented

that FDR's programs were riddled with problems. No, the

real catalyst was Roosevelt's personality— his flexibility,

his confidence, his cockiness, his willingness to take

risks, his ability to try even if trying meant failure. It

was largely the Roosevelt personality that pulled the

United States out of economic depression, changed the face

of government, and earned him the label of the greatest

president of this century.

Similar arguments can be made for other twentieth

century presidents who rose to greatness. Teddy

Roosevelt's larger-than-life persona was strong enough to

reform big business and lead the United States toward world

power. Wilson's personal idealism inspired his immortal

drive for world peace.

Likewise, failed presidents slipped into disgrace

largely because of their weak character. It was not, for

311e . J. Dionne, Jr., "In 1988 Politics, It's Trendy to Tell All," The New York Times. 10 July 1987, 10.

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example, Harding's stand on issues that labels him the

worst president in history. It was Harding's blind trust,

his naivete, his lack of integrity that failed him . . .

and the American people. When historians analyze the

factors that destroyed the Harding presidency, they do not

speak of issues or programs. They speak, instead, of

immorality, personal scandal, and lack of character. In

the words of historian Wilfred E. Binkley: "On the ledger

was a long list of faltering, halfhearted, inept, or futile

attempts at leadership."312

Nor was it Richard Nixon's policies that pulled the

presidency to its nadir— his foreign policy initiatives

were exemplary. The driving force behind Nixon's ordering

the Watergate break-in was not winning the election; he

would have defeated George McGovern without thievery or

wiretaps. But Nixon is paranoid. He also is neurotic,

insecure, compulsive, arrogant, driven by a desire to

succeed and a self-fulfilling fear that he will fail.

This study provides reassurance that today's leading

newspapers are taking seriously their responsibility to

expose and to illuminate the true personality, character,

and values of the nation's leader. Front-page coverage of

personal news about the president and would-be presidents

^^^Binkley, 272.

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has become increasingly intense, substantive, and

insightful. Through this emphasis on quality over quantity

when handling personal news from the White House,

newspapers are continuing their 2 0 0 -year heritage and

demonstrating that the Fourth Estate is not faltering in

upholding its vital role as a pillar of the democratic

system of government.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX

The eight tables contained in this appendix summarize

the amount of coverage each president received in the

various categories of personal stories. Each table focuses

on one category of personal coverage.

In each table, the first column indicates how many

column inches of personal coverage each president received

in the particular category, the second column indicates

what percentage of each president's entire personal

coverage came from stories in that particular category, and

the third column indicates where that president's

percentage figure ranks among the figure for all fifteen

presidents.

347

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Table 43.— A. Vacations/Personal Travel

column share of rank among inches personal coverage presidents

Harding 527 72 percent 1 st

Taft 160 53 percent 2 nd

Coolidge 223 50 percent 3rd

Hoover 64 23 percent 4 th

Eisenhower 90 23 percent 4th

Kennedy 233 2 0 percent 6 th

F . Roosevelt 1 1 2 15 percent 7th

Ford 6 8 1 2 percent 8 th

T. Roosevelt 124 1 1 percent 9 th

Carter 91 1 1 percent 9th

Truman 59 9 percent 1 1 th

Reagan 49 8 percent 1 2 th

Nixon 16 5 percent 13th

Wilson 18 2 percent 14th

Johnson 3 less than 1 percent 15th

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Table 44.— B. Immediate Family/Homelife Activities

column share of rank among inches personal coverage presidents

Wilson 389 53 percent 1 st

Nixon 117 39 percent 2 nd

Kennedy 443 38 percent 3rd

Johnson 2 1 2 33 percent 4 th

F. Roosevelt 173 24 percent 5th

Harding 145 2 0 percent 6 th

Eisenhower 70 18 percent 7th

Hoover 44 16 percent 8 th

Ford 89 15 percent 9th

Carter 1 1 1 13 percent 1 0 th

T. Roosevelt 132 1 2 percent 1 1 th

Truman 77 1 2 percent 1 1 th

Coolidge 33 7 percent 13th

Taft 1 0 3 percent 14th

Reagan 0 0 percent 15th

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Table 45.— C Social Life

column share of rank among inches personal coverage presidents

T . Roosevelt 189 17 percent 1 st

Taft 29 1 0 percent 2 nd

Reagan 35 5 percent 3rd

Kennedy 40 3 percent 4th

Coolidge 1 0 2 percent 5th

Truman 15 2 percent 5th

Harding 8 1 percent 7th

Eisenhower 4 1 percent 7th

Johnson 7 1 percent 7 th

F . Roosevelt 4 less than 1 percent 1 0 th

Wilson 0 0 percent 1 1 th

Hoover 0 0 percent 1 1 th

Nixon 0 0 percent 1 1 th

Ford 0 0 percent 1 1 th

Carter 0 0 percent 1 1 th

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Table 46.— D. Interaction with "Little People"

column share of rank among inches personal coverage presidents

Reagan 151 25 percent 1 st

T. Roosevelt 173 16 percent 2 nd

Eisenhower 61 15 percent 3rd

Hoover 33 1 2 percent 4 th

Truman 75 1 2 percent 4 th

Ford 64 1 1 percent 6 th

Johnson 6 6 1 0 percent 7th

F . Roosevelt 56 8 percent 8 th

Wilson 49 7 percent 9th

Harding 53 7 percent 9th

Coolidge 30 7 percent 9th

Kennedy 65 6 percent 1 2 th

Taft 0 0 percent 13th

Nixon 0 0 percent 13th

Carter 0 0 percent 13th

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Table 47.— E. Interaction with Celebrities

column share of rank among inches personal coverage presidents

Reagan 286 47 percent 1 st

Nixon 127 42 percent 2 nd

Hoover 1 1 0 39 percent 3rd

Ford 218 37 percent 4th

Carter 289 34 percent 5th

Eisenhower 65 16 percent 6 th

F. Roosevelt 1 0 2 14 percent 7th

Johnson 80 1 2 percent 8 th

Truman 69 1 1 percent 9th

Taft 28 9 percent 1 0 th

Kennedy 8 8 8 percent 1 1 th

Wilson 50 7 percent 1 2 th

T. Roosevelt 42 4 percent 13th

Harding 0 0 percent 14th

Coolidge 0 0 percent 14 th

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Table 48.— F. Personal Idiosyncrasies

column share of rank among inches personal coverage presidents

Johnson 278 43 percent 1 st

Truman 234 37 percent 2 nd

F . Roosevelt 241 33 percent 3rd

Ford 140 24 percent 4 th

Wilson 150 2 1 percent 5th

Coolidge 92 2 1 percent 5th

Eisenhower 76 19 percent 7th

Taft 55 18 percent 8 th

T . Roosevelt 155 14 percent 9th

Nixon 39 13 percent 1 0 th

Reagan 65 1 1 percent 1 1 th

Hoover 2 2 8 percent 1 2 th

Carter 67 8 percent 1 2 th

Kennedy 74 6 percent 14th

Harding 0 0 percent 15th

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Table 49.— G. Ceremonial Events

column share of rank among inches personal coverage presidents

T. Roosevelt 276 25 percent 1 st

Wilson 75 1 0 percent 2 nd

Truman 60 9 percent 3rd

Eisenhower 34 9 percent 3rd

Carter 49 6 percent 5th

F. Roosevel t 40 5 percent 6 th

Coolidge 16 4 percent 7th

Kennedy 45 4 percent 7th

Reagan 2 1 3 percent 9th

Ford 9 2 percent 1 0 th

Hoover 2 1 percent 1 1 th

Harding 0 0 percent 1 2 th

Taft 0 0 percent 1 2 th

Johnson 0 0 percent 1 2 th

Nixon 0 0 percent 1 2 th

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Table 50.— H. Extended Family

column share of rank among inches personal coverage presidents

Carter 252 29 percent 1 st

Kennedy 172 15 percent 2 nd

Coolidge 43 1 0 percent 3rd

Truman 44 7 percent 4th

Taft 18 6 percent 5th

T. Roosevelt 19 2 percent 6 th

Hoover 4 1 percent 7th

Wilson 0 0 percent 8 th

Harding 0 0 percent 8 th

F. Roosevelt 0 0 percent 8 th

Eisenhower 0 0 percent 8 th

Johnson 0 0 percent 8 th

Nixon 0 0 percent 8 th

Ford 0 0 percent 8 th

Reagan 0 0 percent 8 th

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