All the Presidents' Spokesmen: Spinning the News--White House Press Secretaries from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush

by Woody Klein

Overview

This is the first volume to chronicle the story of the evolution of the symbiotic relationship between the presidential press secretaries and reporters who covered White House news during the terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Author Woody Klein has been both a reporter (for the Washington Post and the New York World-Telegram & Sun) and a press secretary himself to New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay, who ran for president in 1972. The book reveals how the presidential press secretaries' role has evolved from old-fashioned public relations into a smooth-working system of releasing news and responding to reporters' questions at daily briefings by portraying the president in the best possible light. Klein ferrets out fresh, anecdotal information and includes interviews with nationally known personalities--including former White House press secretaries and notable journalists who have covered the White House. He brings to life the personalities and views of every presidential spokesman on how the job has grown in stature as the press secretaries or "spinmeisters" have become high-profile officials.

Klein reveals how the tension between government and the media--normally healthy in any democracy--has resulted in the manipulation of facts and the release of favorable "official" news. It started subtly in the Roosevelt administration and has been carefully honed with the transformation of the media in the information and technology revolution; he shows how it has been refined to the point where it is now recognized for what it is: slanting or packaging the news in favor of the president to make it acceptable--even desired--by the public. Perception quickly becomes reality, and once the "facts" of a situation have been accepted by the establishment--politicians and the press alike--it becomes virtually impossible to change people's minds about them. The book documents scores of examples of White House spin by topic rather than chronologically--for example, how different press secretaries managed the news in wartime, in foreign policy, in scandals, and in a host of domestic issues such as education and national disasters. Twenty-three press secretaries are included. The most notable among them are Steve Early (Roosevelt), James Hagerty (Eisenhower), Pierre Salinger (Kennedy), Bill Moyers (Johnson), Ron Ziegler (Nixon), Marlin Fitzwater (Reagan and G. H. W. Bush), Dee Dee Myers (Clinton), Mike McCurry (Clinton), Joe Lockhart (Clinton), Ari Fleischer (Bush), Scott McClellan (Bush), and Tony Snow (Bush).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313081774
Publisher:	ABC-CLIO, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/30/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

WOODY KLEIN, an award-winning author and journalist, has written about race relations since he was a newspaper reporter in the 1960s. He is the author of three previous books, Let in the Sun (1964), Lindsay's Promise (1970), and Westport, Connecticut. He has contributed numerous articles to magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times. He has been an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University and Fairfield University, and taught a course in civil rights and the media at The New School University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
FOREWORD: Press Secretaries Are Historical Figures by Marlin Fitzwater
FOREWORD: The First Woman Press Secretary by Dee Dee Myers
PREFACE: The Life of a Press Secretary by Woody Klein
INTRODUCTION: The White House Press Secretary: After the Presidency Itself, Toughest Job in the White House
CHAPTER I: HOT WAR
CHAPTER TWO: COLD WAR
CHAPTER THREE: PRESIDENTIAL SCANDALS
CHAPTER FOUR: DOMESTIC CRISES
CHAPTER FIVE: DOMESTIC CONTROVERSIES
CHAPTER SIX: GLOBAL ISSUES
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the author

Editorial Reviews

Klein, former New York City Mayor John Lindsay's press secretary, explains how the role of presidential press secretary has evolved from the public relations directors known to FDR and Truman to the spinmeisters of recent administration….He organizes material by topics that include the Cold War, presidential scandals, domestic crises, and global issues….This book is a welcome marriage of well-researched scholarship and an engagingly fresh style. Most sections are well documented, and there is an extensive bibliography. Recommended for public and academic communications collections.” —Library Journal

“All the President's Spokesmen, is the first to explore in such breadth the complex and often tense relationship between presidents, presidential press secretaries and the reporters who cover the White House….This is wonderful stuff if you're interested in such things and you won't hear any of it at the next press conference.” —Westport News

From the Publisher