3 Historical Perspectives

Why Learning History Provides Context For Current Communication

There are three main reasons why learning about the history of communication is important for citizenship.

1. We can evaluate what has happened in the past to better understand the present
2. We can evaluate what has happened in the past to better predict what will happen in the future
3. We can gather wisdom, including the understanding that history was not pre-determined

An example of this first reason that it’s important to learn about history (understanding the present) is that it’s very easy for us in retelling stories, to retell them with the framing of good guys versus bad guys. That’s just a natural thing that humans are drawn to do. But, those of us who study the social sciences know that that’s not very realistic depiction of history. In general, there it doesn’t happen very often that someone does exclusively bad things or exclusively good things. There are a lot of people we look back on history who did amazing things that had wonderful accomplishments, but they also made some very bad choices that have hurt people. So, studying history really helps us to dispel this notion of good guys and bad guys. It doesn’t mean that we can’t generally have a positive or negative outlook on someone, rather we are acknowledging that life is not like the movies. This can help us communite better in the present.

An example of the second reason it’s important to learn about history (predicting the future) is that it we can often find rhymes and repetition throughout history. Through these rhymes and repetition, we can find patterns that can help us predict the future and make decisions based on those predictions. For example, many media technologies follow the same cycle of growth and decline. Once we figure out how that cycle works, we can make policy decisions about new technology based on the high chances of a new communication technology following that same pattern.

For the third reason (appreciating that individual people have the ability to change the future), a commonly discussed topic is the Watergate scandal involving President Nixon. Although we know now that Nixon was involved in the scandal, had it not been for the events unfolding as they did (and the documentation kept), this could have remained a secret from the American people indefinitely.

To further explore the study of history of communication and how it impacts citizenship, we will use two examples of current issues to begin a discussion about these three topics. Through the discussions of presidential communication and voting rights in The United States, consider what information about the past helps you understand how and why our current situation is as it is, what could possibily happen in the future and how we might inflluence that, and consider how things might be different today if the communication on these issues in the past had differed.

The Presidents and The Press

One of the best books I’ve read on this topic is “The Presidents Versus the Press”, by political historian Harold Holzer. While this chapter gives a brief overview of the relationship between presidents and the media, I highly recommend reading Holzer’s book for more detailed information.

Throughout America’s history, and particularly during the Donald Trump presidency, US presidents have had at times volatile relationship with the press.  Understanding the past can help us evaluate how normal, common, or productive certain presidential communications can be in terms of creating informed, active, and responsible citizens. For example, while much of Former President Trump’s relationship with the press was  very much unprecedented, and at times dangerous for journalists, it’s also important that we acknowledge that a lot of the things that happened during the Donald Trump presidency were not happening for the first time in American history. In fact, no president, not even our very first one, George Washington, has ever been fully satisfied with the press (Holzer, 2021). There’s always been some kind of tension between politicians and journalists, and that tension is, in a way, necessary. One of the purposes of having a free press is that they can serve as a watchdog for politicians, ensuring transparancy and good decision making.

However, sometimes this relationship between the President and the press, the tension can become dangerous. For example, when they start to see each other as the “enemy”, and this is a phrase that we heard a lot from the president between 2016 and 2020, that is when the relationship starts to get dangerous for democracy and for citizens.

George Washington: Overall, Washington had a positive outlook towards newspapers. He was an avid newspaper reader and appreciated that they were disseminating knowledge to the masses. His main concern with newspapers during the Revolutionary War was that he worried that the newspaper reports would print information that the British could get ahold of that would put the army in danger by giving away their location. Other than that, he was pretty much in favor of an open and active press. After he became president, that actually didn’t change much. Of course, the scrutiny got a little bit heavier after he became president (as it will). However, while he was in office, he never really fought back or spoke out against any of the people who were slandering him in the newspapers, having been cognizant of the fact that he was setting the tone for future presients. So our overall impression of George Washington is that he was more on the side of Free Press. Now, again, this doesn’t mean that he was a faultless human being (he mistreated people in ways that many of us consider immoral). But as far as his relationship with the press goes, he was the first president to have a good relationship with the press perhaps the last as well.

John Adams: When new presidents come into office, they often have a honeymoon period with the press. This happened with Adams for his first few months. Adams was a lot more hands on than Washington, who didn’t want to get involved with the newspapers. Adams, on the other hand, would publish his own editorials, often about foreign affairs. His passions for sharing his own opinions led him to criminalize opposition journalism. At that point in time, that’s when we start to see a real legal threat to journalists who are speaking out against the government, even if they were saying something that was true, it was still illegal. The only exception that Adams made was that it was okay to say something bad about the vice president. At that time, the President did not choose the vice president. Whoever came in first in the vote was president and whoever came in second was the vice president. So, they were often opposite political parties, as was the case with Adams and Jefferson. When Adams made it illegal to say anything bad about the government, he was very careful to to make an exception for publishing something negative about Jefferson. One of the reasons why this was such a serious issue is that the judges who were in charge of deciding the fate of people who were charged with speaking ill of the government were federally appointed, so that reduced the checks and balances. So for  Adams’s legacy, he’s regarded mostly as anti free press.

Thomas Jefferson: Jefferson didn’t like that Adams had created the act making it illegal to say anything bad about the government, unless they had said it about Jefferson…that is until he was president. Once he was president, he changed his mind. He just didn’t want it to be federally controlled. Rather, he wanted the states to be able to punish people who spoke negatively about the government. So, Jefferson’s record on free press is mixed. He did donated his personal library to what later became the Library of Congress, which included over 60 years worth of newspapers. But there were also some things that he did against the free press such as rewarding loyal journalists with exclusive information, including starting America’s first government run newspaper.

Andrew Jackson: Regarding the state of his relationship with the press when he came into power, there was a journalist who was very critical of him because of his use of martial law. Jackson had that journalist put in, in jail without trial. So before Jackson, it was illegal to say something bad about the government, but at least there was a trial. Futher, he also put the journalist’s lawyer and the judge in jail as well! Also at that time, the newspapers were heavily involved in the election battle between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. It got very immature with some back and forth with the newspapers. For example, newspapers published information saying that John Adams’s wife was not an American citizen, even though she was. They also said that John Adams and his wife had had premarital sex. In the meantime, they were also saying negative things about Jackson’s marriage because his wife technically was married to another man when they got married. So even long ago, these were very personal newspaper attacks. When Jackson’s wife passed away due to a heart attack, he blamed the press because he felt that they they had caused that stress for her. Thus, he is not known to have been in favor of the free press. In fact, he organized friendly journalists to disseminate propaganda, and he gave them these very lucrative government positions in exchange for that. He was the first president to use journalists as counselors, which led to the first national syndicated press in America, which was propaganda. He hired a Postmaster General, who would purposely delay the delivery of opposition newspapers, bearing in mind that at that time, the Postmaster General was a very powerful position.

Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s time in office was, of course, very unique due to the Civil War. In response to critisisms of him and the unique situation the country was in, Lincoln instituted the most repressive presidential censor yet, even more than Adam Sedition Act. He arrested and imprisoned newspaper editors and he banned new newspapers that he didn’t like from using telegraphs (he had total control over the telegraphs). He slowed down war correspondents from the battlefield and he confiscated printing presses. But one thing that is interesting is that Lincoln was really not concerned about censoring personal criticism of him, it was really a criticism of his policies that that he was censoring. He did say that he was going to stop having that kind of extreme censorship after the war was over. But, we’ll never know if and when he would have relaxed that control because he was assassinated, of course, after shortly after the war.

Teddy Roosevelt Roosevelt was known for his barber hour, where he literally would have the journalists come and chat with him while he was getting his hair and his his beard done. This informality generally worked out for him, because he would have a lot of off the record conversations with journalists, and generally they wouldn’t print anything that he would not have liked. At that time, we started seeing more investigative journalism, as opposed to editors of different newspapers kind of bickering with each other through the newspaper. Roosevelt had a complicated sort of love-hate relationship with the investigative journalists who were working on exposing problems in America, including government corruption. He really enjoyed when they did something that made him look good but not when they did something that made him look bad. Another part of his legacy is that he did establish a press room and the White House in that room has been used by journalists ever since.

Woodrow Wilson People expected that Wilson would also be super friendly, but he was the opposite of that. He was always very formal, and the press didn’t like how formal he was. But he did make history with the first regular white house news conferences, though they stopped  at the start of World War I. He also famously had a stroke and lied about it to the press, which is something that we see as a repetitions(that the public does not always get very honest information about president’s health). Also, he limited press access to the news about the war or anything that was critical of his efforts, arrested people who opposed the military draft, and created the federal Committee on Public Information, which oversaw restrictions on sensitive press coverage like a propaganda machine. However, he did reduce all of those after the war ended.

FDR. FDR is of course most well known for his fireside chats where he would speak directly to the American people over the radio, which was new (such direct communication). He had both formal question and answer sessions like Wilson did and the informal relationships with journalists like Teddy Roosevelt had. In fact, he was was so close with the journalists that they never shared that he used wheelchair.  After Pearl Harbor had been bombed, he signed an executive order creating the Office of censorship.

Lyndon B. Johnson became president after JFK was assassinated. He’s mainly remembered for four things cursing, nudity, spur of the moment news conferences and civil rights. Like other presidents, he was an avid newspaper reader, very sensitive to his own coverage. His media coverage on domestic issues was very positive. But his media coverage on foreign issues, particularly the Vietnam War was very negative.

Nixon You can’t really think of it Nixon without thinking about what a terrible relationship he had with the press. And it started from the very beginning, before he was elected, one of the reasons why he was elected is that you He said he had this great plan for ending the Vietnam War. But then he couldn’t share it with people because it was a secret. And of course, the secret was that he had no plan. And that’s rhyme that we’ve seen with politicians in the media ever since. Generally, if they tell you they have a plan, but it’s secret, they probably don’t have a plan. He was the first American president to use this idea of the press being prejudice against him as a campaign theme, and something that kind of governed the choices that he made. As President, his relationship with the press was so bad that it may have actually caused a permanent cultural shift. While he’s best known for Watergate, there were many other issues that he had with the media, for example, when he was caught using campaign funds unethically, he threatened the journalist that he would publicly call him a communist and therefore ruin his career. There’s evidence that the likely work to sabotage a peace deal with North Vietnam to prevent LBJ from an October surprise, which likely was treason.

Ronald Reagan. Reagan had a generally positive relationship with the media. His media strategy was to have fall people so instead of being the spokesperson, or taking responsibility for issues himself, he hired people to be his scapegoat person, which worked out really positively for him in that it helped his relationship with the media. As far as being open, or transparent, he was not terribly open or transparent. In fact, he pressured or forced his staff to sign documents that they would not tell the newspapers, anything that was going on in the White House. That wasn’t that unusual, other presidents had had had those kinds of documents done. But it always ended when the presidency ended. With Reagan, it was a lifetime thing.

George HW Bush. Bush benefited greatly from conservative talk radio because there was a fairness doctrine and said that you if you’re going to present one political issue, you had to present both sides of the issue. But then when that doctrine was gotten away with that paved the way for hyper partisan media, and a lot of the conservative one was on talk radio.

Bill Clinton. Of course, Bill Clinton is remembered for his sexual affairs, some of which include allegations of very serious crimes. But as far as freedom of the press goes, there were two instances that he kind of demonstrated that he was in favor of the Free Press. For example, he vetoed a bill that was meant to inhibit press access to government officials, which would have benefited him, but he vetoed it anyway. And he spoke about press freedom internationally, that became kind of an issue that that he was pushing for.

George W. Bush had a rocky start with the press, particularly since he had lost the popular vote yet still became president anyway. He was known for having nicknames for the press, which included some that were racially insensitive, which is unclear if he even knew that because it’s like he thought that nicknames were going to be endearing. There was some negative press coverage after his delayed reactions to multiple events such as that seven minutes that he kept reading a book to elementary students, even though America had been under attack on September 11. And of course, there’s a lot of negative press coverage when he had the war in Iraq, presumably because he claimed they had weapons of mass destruction, which they famously did not have weapons of mass destruction. He’s also well known for the lack of transparency, including, famously, there were 200,000 emails that were deleted.

Barack Obama Many people are actually surprised by this, but Obama had a pretty terrible relationship with the press. But, Obama was the first president during this huge presence of social media, which meant that he could also kind of sidestep the printed newspapers, by speaking directly to the American people which other presidents had done for him. He also had a reciprocally negative relationship with Fox News. This was a bit like a cycle where Fox News did say and do some very racist things regarding Obama. Then Obama in turn, would stop communicating with them. And then they would say, “You’re not including us; you’re being very by a very partisan”.

Donald Trump had perhaps the worst relationship with the press. So a lot of things that have happened during the Trump presidency happened before, we see a lot of rhymes and repetitions through history. But it’s almost like if you take every negative thing that happened in someone else’s presidency, and just kind of wrap them all into one. Of course, we saw a lot of disinformation during the Trump presidency, which had very real life consequences, including the mobs invading Congress on January 6th, 2021.  However, a lot of people believe the disinformation that he shared; almost a quarter of Republicans in 2018 felt that Trump should shut down the New York Times and The Washington Post, and 25% believed that Barack Obama was practicing the Muslim religion. Even more recently, many Republicans believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 election when there’s clear evidence with journalists, scholars, politicians, clearly he did not win the election, but has spread a lot of disinformation about it. Trump during his presidency made jokes about killing journalists, which a lot of his supporters took seriously. He failed to condemn the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, even at one point in time, echoing the words of Saudi Arabia, implying that he deserved to die.

Voter Suppression

This book, and the course that goes along with it, are based in the field of Communication which is housed within the social sciences. Students sometimes ask what makes Communication different than other social sciences. The difference is that we focus really exclusively on messages; everything we do has some kind of a message involved in it. One of the greatest message we, as citizens, can share is the vote.

Your vote is a message that you share with the government and with other people, maybe your friends and family. Thus, it is important to understand the role of voting in a democracy and the impact of voter suppression. Voter turn out and support for policies that restrict access to voting are relevant to mass media and have been problematic in America.

You’ll often hear the phrase that democracy works best when we have more of it. This is the goal of a democracy is to represent the citizens, and these citizens are best represented when as many voices can be heard as possible.

However, there has been a history of voter suppression in America. For example, Jim Crow laws, often enforced by attack dogs and police batons, have restricted Black Americans from voting during the reconstruction period after WWII. After the efforts focusing on voting rights were enforced, voting was still surpressed through the use of poll taxes and literacy tests (white people were excempt since they were “grandfathered” in. It was also difficult for women to get the right to vote, and once they did, they were often afraid of getting caught voting.

2020 and Modern Day Issues 

Recent issues include attacks on mail in voting during a pandemic (including efforts to slow down the US mail), reduced polling stations and long lines, removing people from voter registration, gerrymandering, lack of early voting or days off for people who work hourly (this is particularly hard for young people), and lack of access to good quality information about candidates.

References

Edsall, T. B. (September, 15 2021). Abortion has never just been about abortion. The New York Times.

Editorial Board. (May 2, 2021). Republicans are still waging their war on democracy, state after state. The Washington Post.

Editorial Boad. (July 2, 2021). The supreme court abandons voting rights. The New York Times.

Holzer, H. The Presidents Versus the Press.

Savage, C. & Benner, K. (June 3, 2021). Trump administration secretely seized phone records of Times reporters. The New York Times.