05-18-2015, 12:44 PM
(05-18-2015, 12:38 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: No it wasn't. The only thing Wilson started was a regular briefing and a formal person so take charge of wrangling the press. He hated the press.
Aside from individuals here and there that were cozy the press has grown more adversarial to politicians over the years as a whole.
But we have Lincoln to thank for first hiring someone to deal the with press, though as I said, it took until Wilson for it to be a formal position. Cleveland is to thank for the formation of the Press Corps as that is when the press actually started caring more about what was going on. Prior to that, most newspapers didn't cover the WH or the POTUS, and those that did were on friendly terms. Coolidge was the first to really get comfortable with them, though. He was more accessible than any POTUS before him and was the first to attend the WH Correspondents Dinner.
White house corespondents were started to smoothe it out with Woodrow wilson because he threatened to stop having press conferences. So he made the media basically make nice with him to get access. Which pushed them to be friendly instead of adversarial
Coolidge attended because there was Wilson backlash.
