Every Four Years: Presidential Campaigns and the Press

In the 1930s and 1940s, candidates and reporters both recognized the impact radio could have on campaigns. For candidates, radio offered a new way to bypass the editorial control of newspapers and address citizens directly. For radio reporters, the medium’s “you are there” qualities brought new storytelling rules to the campaign trail. Radio sets like this RCA model became increasingly commonplace in American homes in the 1920s.

Disagreement and dissent dominated political conventions for more than a century as party leaders met to broker and bicker over candidates. Radio and television broadcast the chaos into American living rooms. The development of the primary system, which made nominations at the convention a mere formality, has made today’s conventions more of a commercial for candidates than a news event. Reporters used these press passes to cover political conventions from 1944 to 2008.

In the 1950s, television became a major force in campaign coverage, and the presidential primary emerged as a path to the nomination. The emergence of televised news marked the beginning of the end of the political convention as the decisive nominating mechanism. Journalists assumed the central role of screening and, in effect, often winnowing potential candidates. Although the true impact of television would not be felt until the end of the decade, when nearly 90 percent of American families owned TV sets, the power of the new medium was evident.In July 1952, Time magazine focused on television’s role in covering the conventions. The 1952 conventions were the first to be nationally televised.

In the final decades of the 20th century, traditional news faced increasing competition from the “new news” — cable TV, call-in talk radio shows, websites and blogs. Reporters recorded the candidates’ gestures, analyzed every move they made, and uploaded stories and tape all day, feeding the voracious appetite of a 24/7 industry that only knew “now.” In the 2000 election, faulty polling and the rush to be first in a 24-hour news cycle led to the media’s inaccurate prediction that Democrat Al Gore had won the key state of Florida — and the presidency. Broadcasters backtracked and said Republican George W. Bush had won. Gore won the national popular vote but lost the election in the Electoral College. The close race wasn’t decided until a month later.

Reporters traveled with candidates on trains and then planes, reporting the news in newspapers, then radio, television, and now on the internet. On the campaign trail, candidates want to get their message out and reporters want to challenge the candidates about their message, campaign promises and policies. Reporters who traveled on Sen. John McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” bus during his unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination in 2000 signed this quilt to mark the end of the campaign.

Throughout Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, the rules for press coverage remained simple: Private behavior of public figures remained private unless it had a direct bearing on public responsibilities. Reporters knew that Roosevelt had a close relationship with Princess Martha of Norway but made only oblique mentions. And they rarely photographed the president in a wheelchair. During John F. Kennedy’s campaign, reporters and editors did not cover Kennedy’s private life, including rumors of extramarital affairs. It was a far cry from today’s “anything goes” journalism.

The internet revolutionized presidential politics and news coverage. In 2008, candidates announced their intention to run via online videos, used the internet to raise money and rally support, and got their messages to the public without the filter of traditional media. The internet reaches more voters but makes it harder for candidates to escape scrutiny. Campaign news, good or bad, goes viral in minutes, but sometimes speed trumps accuracy. Eight years later, new technologies, apps and online news outlets are shaping the 2016 election.

Making fun of presidential candidates has long been a campaign ritual. From the 19th-century humor magazine Puck to TV’s “Saturday Night Live,” satirists have found big audiences for political humor. Today’s campaign trail includes mandatory stops on late-night comedy and talk shows, as more young people get their political news from TV comedy shows. With their visual power and vast audiences, television and the internet amplify the jokes, helping to shape, and sometimes distort, a politician’s image. In 1877, Puck, America’s first successful humor magazine, made fun of former President Ulysses S. Grant’s reputation for drinking.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said it best: "There is no democracy without elections. And there can be no elections without the press." "Every Four Years" explores the storms weathered, the lines crossed and the battles waged through the rocky marriage of reporters and candidates on the presidential campaign trail. The relationship between presidential hopefuls and the press goes to the core of the Newseum’s mission — to help educate visitors about free expression, the five freedoms of the First Amendment and the role of the press in a free society.