At the newseum, you and your team have been charged with telling the story of the news media in society. We will talk today about news media and president s. When you think about that relationship from a macro standpoint, what has characterized the relationship between president s and the press throughout our history . Patty it is an interesting courtship, the relationship between the president s and the press. Early on during the campaign, the candidates want to woo the press. They want to put on the best face and they know the power of the press to get their message outside. But when i get in office and the confetti is down in the celebration is over and the , reality of governing comes in, and they realize that the role of the press is to be a watchdog, to be the peoples watchdog on government, to see how are they doing the job that they are doing. To be a check and balance on the president. Few president s enjoy being criticized. That is often the role of the press. So that relationship for people who dont understand that, it can go very badly. Susan we will talk about changing media over time, and also changing reporting styles. So, when did the tradition begin that the news media should be an impartial judge . So much of our history, news reporting was you read the side that you were attuned to. When did that shift . Patty it was a 20th century ideal. In the George Washington days, the press was highly partisan. Remember it was the publishers , and the printers who made the case for it being time to separate from Great Britain and king george iii. It was highly partisan. Highly volatile. Printers were being tarred and feathered. There presses were burned. We talk about how divided we are as a country, being an msnbc person or fox news person, but back in the early years of our country, in the first several presidencies it was very much , that way. Susan and even continued past the civil war era. Patty absolutely. Lincoln, you have to read both sets of newspapers to understand what was going on there. Thinking in general about successful president s, is there a correlation between president s who know how to work the newsmen and women of the time, and how they are viewed in history . Patty absolutely. I think president s who understand the media of their day are able to deal with it smoothly, understand the press, make friends with the press. We saw with john f. Kennedy how he had that relationship with members of the press who knew things about his private life that were perhaps not very flattering and chose to overlook it. Of course, it was a different time then. President s who understand the role of journalists who respect them for what they do, who respect the First Amendment. Freedom of the press, we were the first country to make that part of our governing laws, so it is very important to our very foundation, the dna of the country. So it is president s who are not thin skinned, who understand the role of the press as being the voice of the people, and those who understand the medium of their day and are able to project through that medium. Susan we will dig into history, but not in chronological order. I want to start with the nixon presidency. The relationship between president nixon and the press seemed strained throughout much of his public life. John farrell just did a landmark nixon biography, and if you look in the index there are 16 citations under medias mutual enmity with nixon, setting the stage for it. During the cold war as a senator, he made a name for himself as a anticommunist warrior. The media in the 1940s and 1950s looked on an in those days, looked on him in those days and when did it begin to , change . He made a name for himself with mccarthy and elder hess. It was during the red scare, where people were terrified that there might be communists in our government. There were communists in our government. And yet the republic still stands. We are here. Then he is on the ticket with eisenhower on his Vice President ial ticket, and the report surfaces that mr. Nixon has perhaps taken finances from someone he should not have done so, so he goes on television and he is in hot water with eisenhower, goes on television and gives his famous checkers speech. Probably the height of nixon in successful television. He talks about the only present he has ever gotten was his dog, checkers, and so americans thought, oh, what a good daddy is. What a good guy he is. So he becomes Vice President. In his presidency, his mistrust of the press is a landmark of his time in office. After he loses his first run, he goes back to california and then loses another race for governor in california, and at a famous press conference he says, you are not going to have me to kick around anymore. Two members of the press that is , his attitude. That is pretty much prevailing. During the white house era, he creates an enemy list of reporters who are friendly, who are not friendly, has the f. B. I. Investigating reporters. So that poor relationship with the press is never resurrected. It doesnt help when two young journalists from the Washington Post dig into the watergate breakin and he resigned from his presidency. Susan in John Farrells biography, he writes the California Press corps believed nixon was using the Governors Office as a stepping stone, and bridled at his expectation that they owed him a free pass. They met him with skepticism and sometimes hostility. He returned the favor, labeling them as prostitutes and hatchet men. Patty tough to get over that. [laughter] that kind of a conversation. How do you get past that, and of course, you have the famous kennedynixon debates, where nixon had come out of hospital, his had an infection and he doesnt look good. The first nationally televised president ial debates. John f. Kennedy, handsome in front of the camera a former , journalist himself. People who listened to the debate on the radio thought nixon had more content, but the people who saw it on television were mesmerized with kennedy. And his telegenic appeal. Susan really interesting because you cited two earlier experiences, where he seems to understand the power of the media. The televised committee hearings, and then the checkers speech. So was it more of a circumstance you think of his illness, or is it not known why he did not do so well in the kennedynixon debates . Patty i think people generally feel that they asked kennedy, did he want makeup, he said, no, i dont. Nixon thought it was perhaps not manly to put makeup on. That was probably a bad gamble on his part. Makeup makes everyone look because of course better on , television. Not you, susan. You look perfect. That was the decision he made. The illness did not help. It was a poor performance on television. But radio, better. Susan once the watergate story broke after his landslide election, when we look at what happened between the white house and how the white house that day responded to crises versus what were seeing with the white house today responding it was a , very different era in the media. What are some of the lessons on reporting around the time of watergate, and what the media was like then, versus today . Patty i think coverup is always a mistake. Whenever you are putting so much energy in a coverup, it is always a bad sign. They really circled the wagons against the press and the media. The saturday night massacre events that happened. We are seeing elements of that today with the trump presidency. The sudden people leaving office, people who have served their government and their country for decades and decades as Civil Servants and as military servants, suddenly leaving. Those are anomalies that the press is going to cover. When shocking things like that happen, the press has to give people an understanding of what is going on. Susan we have our first piece of video to share with you in the audience. This is Richard Nixon and a postwatergate story breaking news conference, november 17, 1973. Just a little glimpse of how he reacts and interacts with the media. Lets watch. [video clip]. I want to say this to the television audience. I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, i have never profited from public service. I earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, i have never obstructed justice. And i think, too, that i can say in my years of public life, that i welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, im not a crook. Ive earned everything ive got. Patty those are words that would go back to haunt him. What is the headline every newspaper will say, i am not a crook, Richard Nixon. Yet he resigned his office. In ignomy. That defensive tactic you see in him on television does not play well on that medium. He comes off sounding defensive all the way through. When he says, i am not a crook, the immediate thing you think is yes, he might be. Susan from the media side, a whole generation of young people were drawn into the business of journalism after woodward and bernstein. How did newspaper reporting change and coverage of the president change as a result of watergate . Patty i think many young journalists saw it as a field that would be one where you could do good for society. You could unearth conspiracy. Correct injustice, draw attention to stories that otherwise were not being told. I think there were a whole generation of people who went into journalism because of the woodward and bernstein, and the power they had, in the important story they did. I think the relationship, the cozy relationship the press and president s had, for example, in the kennedy years, is not there much more. It became distrustful after the vietnam war, and the pentagon papers that revealed that the government had been misleading the public. About how well the word is doing. Many it was a counterculture era where young people were challenging their elders. We have a president who has gone down to resignation in shame. Many things are happening culturally that are leading people to distrust authority in general. That attitude reverberates in the press. Susan just eight years earlier in the election that nixon lost, brought kennedy to power a very , different relationship between the president and the media. The term camelot often used to refer to the time. What are the things to know about how the press and john kennedy interacted during his presidency . Patty john kennedy and his wife, jacqueline, understood the power of image, understood the power their telegenic young family would have on the American Public. We come from the eisenhower years of a much older president and first lady, suddenly, we have this first lady who is like a hollywood star. She sells magazine covers just by her presence. She is mysterious and softspoken. Those Young Children in the white house really get a generation of americans excited about, these people are going through the same thing i am going through. The baby boom generation is watching these Young Children grow up in the white house. Kennedy was very comfortable with the press, comfortable with the intellectual debate about ideas, and criticism about himself. You saw that in the days after his inauguration. He has the first live president ial conference. Press conference. You see the bantering, that sense of humor he has. He charms the American Public and the press. They admit later that they do not holding to the same standard that they might have, were he not such a personally engaging person. He had a great friend in bradley at newsweek, and a senator at the Washington Post. Those connections helped him make his way in the washington power structure. Susan another citation from john farrell on this, he wrote, kennedy could curse the press, tap their phones, keep a private blacklist and piteously crush a foe, but with the confidence of wealth, good looks and breeding, he did not let the pressure got to him. The storms past and the temp is eased by irony or humor. Nixon didnt have that quality. So is it somewhat about personality and the relationship with the press . Patty it is absolutely about personality. I think you see that. President trump has been elected, he is a Reality Television star. His personality is one that resonates with a large percent of the american population. Personality is really critical, i think and i think president s who understand the best way to get their personality across through the prevailing media of the day are often the most successful. Susan we will go back further in time in history, but before we do, a little bit about you. So people know who they are listening to. What is your job in the newseum . Patty i am the Vice President of content and exhibits. I have this wonderful job where we tell the story of the five freedoms of the First Amendment, and how americans can use them to effect change from the Civil Rights Era and onward. I have a great job. Susan how long has the newseum been open . Patty the newseum had been open for 22 years. Sadly we will close our location on december 31 to the public and go off into the future and figure out our mission for the future, because our mission has never been more important to explain to people, the five freedoms of the First Amendment, particularly the role of the freedom of the press. Susan the newseum is funded by admission fees, and how else . Patty our primary funder is the freedom forum, our parent organization. We also have donors. Who have helped sustain us throughout the years. And ticket prices from the people who come to see us. Susan i am sure many people watching have made it a part of there washington, d. C. Visits when they come to the nations , capital. Do you have plans for where all the exhibits might be going . Patty we have our first traveling exhibit scheduled, rise up, stonewall and the l bdt q movement will travel to the , museum of popculture in seattle next june. We also have a Pulitzer Prize exhibit on the road. We have 40 chances about the power of photography to uncover the causes of hunger. So we have a lot of exhibits on the road. We will be continuing our programs and a robust walk around the journalist memorial, where we highlight journalists who have given their all, given their lives to report the truth to people around the world. Susan you came to this job as a reporter and editor. Tell me about your journalism career. Patty my first job was at a small newspaper in huntington, west virginia. For the kennett chain, the hunting advertiser that folded shortly after i got there. I went to the morning paper, the herald dispatch. I worked there three years. Then i came to usa today as a founding editor. It was really exciting. It was a startup. No one knew anything about us. Then it became the largest newspaper in the country. That was a really exciting ride to have. Patty what took you to journalism in the first place . A little bit of woodward and bernstein. That passion of the 1970s to see high combined skills writing and telling stories with a desire to make the world a better place. Susan as you look at the world of journalism from when you started or even when usa today began, what are the differences today and those earlier years . Patty gosh, i wish i could be more optimistic, but there were many more journalists in the 1970s than there are right now. The losses that Mainstream Press print publications have had to the digital news era have been decimating. Particularly to local journalism. There are places where there are news deserts where there are no news outlets covering the news for a large swath of the American People. That is very troubling. We have seen the rise of Digital Media and the rise of social media. People see things on facebook and they see it as fact, when it is not reported like when journalists do fact checking. Im calling multiple sources. There really are not two sides to the story, there are multiple sides to the story. I would like to be an optimist. I would like to think the American People are going to see that members of the press are critical to our democracy, and will start supporting media. Weather is printer podcasts. Get your news from good sources, but because the truth matters. Susan in september, the Pew Organization did one of its regular surveys on Public Attitudes and at that time, they reported that only 41 of the public they surveyed saw the news media as fair arbiters, honest brokers of what is going on. And if you look to the next level, a big partisan divide, much more trusted by democrats than republicans. What is going on there, do you think . Patty we do a survey, the freedom form does an annual survey, the state of the First Amendment. And our numbers are a little better than that, people are feeling better about the press. I would say it has to do with your political point of view. The internet and Digital Media has allowed us to stay in digital bubbles of our own thought. We can go to a place where we can only see red state news, or only see blue state news, which reinforces your ideas about the world, the government and the role of the press. I think the press missed a big story in 2016 when donald trump was elected. Much of the Mainstream Media poohpoohed that possibility and said Hillary Clinton was going to win. I think perhaps the news media needed to do some soulsearching after that how can we better serve the public, how can we better do the job we are here to do . Susan we will continue and go back to the very founding. George washington, the only president elected unanimously. How long was his honeymoon . Patty not very long, sadly. [laughter] George Washington first comes to the press, he is a land owner, he uses newspapers to advertise for runaway slaves and things like that, so he is a person of that era. As a general, he is critical of the press because he sees the press as revealing the location to the enemy too often. Nevertheless, he is readin