Abstract

Beloved by the Media

Former United States President Ronald Reagan lived a charmed life in many respects, none more so than in his relationship with the news media. Indeed, his accomplishments as President are impossible to understand without recognizing the way he and his advisers turned the media, especially television, into a national megaphone for his policies. Most obituaries of Reagan have noted the decisive role that public relations played in his White House, and it is true that the former actor's public relations apparatus pioneered or perfected many of the news-management techniques now taken for granted by press and public alike. Although the Reagan White House did not shrink from censoring news, most famously during the 1983 invasion of Grenada, the taming of the media during the Reagan years was mostly self-inflicted. In "On Bended Knee," a book about the press and Reagan based on interviews with scores of journalists, news executives and Administration officials, I documented numerous cases of self-censorship. In the United States, the media shape mass opinion but tend to reflect elite opinion, and most of the nation's elite either supported Reagan or were afraid to criticize him.