bq. This study examines the media diet of Richard Nixon, whose exposure to the news consisted almost entirely of a White House-produced daily news summary. Nixon staffers repeatedly asserted that the summary was the most effective way to give the president a comprehensive, objective account of the previous day’s reporting. While the summaries covered a wide range of media sources, analysis of the framing and filtering done by the White House raises doubts about the assertion that summaries were an effective substitute for first-hand consumption of the news. Nixon’s handwritten marginal notes reveal that the summaries provoked reactions in the president that had important implications for his conduct of the presidency.
That’s from some newly published research by Chris Karpowitz. Nixon’s marginal notes are of course full of tasty tidbits:
bq. Get out that I missed both games on Sunday (Jan. 2). I never allow T.V. to interfere with state business.
bq. H[aldeman] – who in the hell would be so stupid to put this out – It absolutely serves no purpose whatever except to blow our low key method & give CBS a scoop – Stop filling in the staff on avg political tactics.
bq. H – See that N.B.C. gets a hard kick from Klein on this.
More generally, Karpowitz finds that Nixon’s news summaries emphasized negative depictions of Nixon and thereby fed his distrust:
bq. At the same time, though, the summaries were the kindling that could fire the more negative aspects of Nixon’s personality. From that perspective, they were an extremely poor fit with his personality. Instead of countering his destructive tendencies, the summaries consistently reinforced already existing resentments.
It’s no surprise, then, that the plurality of his marginal comments were either spin (as in the first comment above) or venting (as in the second and third).
Karpowitz concludes:
bq. For healthy presidential leadership, there may be no substitute for first-hand consumption of media stories, even if in managed doses.