Harold Holzer - The Endless Battle between the White House and the Media--from the Founding Fathers to Fake News

Monument Man

The Annotated Lincoln

A Just and Generous Nation

1865

Exploring Lincoln

President Lincoln Assassinated!

Lincoln and the Power of the Press

The Civil War in 50 Objects

1863: Lincolns Pivotal Year

Emancipating Lincoln

Hearts Touched by Fire

Lincoln on War

The New York Times Complete Civil War

Lincoln: How Abraham Lincoln Ended Slavery in America

Lincoln and New York

Lincoln President-Elect

The Lincoln Assassination Conspirators

The Lincoln Anthology

In Lincolns Hand

Lincoln and Freedom

Lincolns White House Secretary

The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views

The Battle of Hampton Roads

Lincoln in the Times

Lincoln at Cooper Union

Prangs Civil Pictures

Lincoln Seen and Heard

Lincoln as I Knew Him

The Lincoln Forum

The Lincoln Mailbag

Dear Mr. Lincoln

Washington and Lincoln Portrayed

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Lincoln on Democracy

The Union Image

The Lincoln Family Album

The Confederate Image

The Lincoln Image

In the summer of 1793, five months into his second term as the unanimously elected president of the United States, George Washington caught sight of a gruesome caricature just published in a local newspaper. The crudely drawn pasquinade, meant to taunt him for tilting to Britain over France in foreign affairs, depicted the president with his head placed on a Guillotine, ready for execution in the manner of disgraced French royalty. The typically stoic Washington was incensed. His blood rising, he stormed into a cabinet meeting and, as his secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, observed, got into one of those passions when he cannot command himselfin other words, flew into a rage.

As all his cabinet ministers looked on in astonishment, recalled Jefferson, Washington hurled the offending cartoon to the floor of the executive mansion and launched into a tirade on the personal abuse which had been bestowed on him by opposition journalists. The president [d]efied any man on earth to produce one single act of his since he had been in the government which was not done on the purest motives. Angrily repenting that he had not resigned the presidency earlier, he shouted that by god he had rather be in his grave than his present situation.

First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen George Washington may have been, but he was also the first president to rant against negative press coverage, and anything but the last to believe himself egregiously maltreated by journalists. Even Jefferson, a staunch defender of the presss freedom to criticize presidents as long as Washington led the country, would endureand decrysimilar attacks once he occupied the White House.

The most recent president to respond angrily to press criticism is the most recent president. Donald Trumps relentless attacks on the journalists he brands enemies of the people fillmany opponents say, polluteboth social and mainstream media. Yet, in a way, Trump rails against the press much as his predecessors didjust more publicly, more often, and with faster and wider reach. Nearly all presidents, from Washington to Trump, have reacted to press criticism in this manner: treating what we now call the media as the enemy. Todays critics often complain that Trump circumvents the press to deploy his messages directly to the people through technologically advanced media, but so did Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama. Or that Trump obsesses about his press coverage; but so did Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Or that Trump expects coverage of his personal life to remain off limits, as did FDR, JFK, and Bill Clinton.