policy - The Black Vault

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throughout Nixon's term of office, media-government relations were rancorous.
the news media,
Ironically, for all the expressed bad feeling Letween Nixoa and
few presidents have ever received as mucf, positive press
support in the early stages of their administration. 45/ Nixon's "honeymoon",
the custom of leaying a new president largely free of press criti-
+1 cism, lasted some nine months instead of the customary four months. 46/ In
spite of this generally positive support, Nixon perceived the press to be
an obstacle to the accomplishment of his oolitical objectives, and he began
early in his first term to plan his assault on the media.
Nixon's animosity to the news media was deeply rooted. By 1952,
the time of the famous "Checkers" speech when Nixon responded to charges of
campaign irregularities, Nixon had come to see the people of t.he nevws media
as barriers to his efforts to reach the American people.
Six Crises, Nixon wrote:
In his book,
My only hope to win rested with millions of people i
would never meet, sitting in groups of two or three or
four in their living rooms, watching and listening to
me on television...This time I was determined to tell
my story directly to the people rather than to funnel
it to them through press accounts. 47/
Nixon's "Checkers" speech was an important political turning
point for him as it taught him the importance of the new television media.
The 1960 election underlined that importance when he was defeated by
Kennedy who also developed a '-een sense of using television to his advantage.
The telejised debates with Kennedy were a key element in Kennedy's
narrow victory margin. By 1962 with his defeat in the California gubernatorial
contest, Nixon's relations with the news media had reached a low
point when he declared that the press "wouldn't have Dick Nixon to kick
around anymore." 48/
When he assumed the presidency in 1969,
Nixon brought with him a
strong belief that the men who controlled the news media were his enemies
and that only by appealing directly to the people could he reach h;s objectives.
Instead of reading a large number of newspapers as Kennedy had,
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