FDR and the News Media

Power was at the heart of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's relationship with the media: the power of the nation's chief executive to control his public messages versus the power of the free press to act as an independent watchdog over the president and the government. This compelling study of Roosevelt points to his consummate news management as a key to his political artistry and leadership legacy. Winfield explores FDR's handling of the media as a study in the conflict between confidentiality and openness in a democratic society. During the Depression FDR's leadership mode was flexible and open, seeking new answers for problems that had not responded to conventional solutions. Correspondingly, his dealings with the media were frank and freewheeling. But, during the war years, when invasion was a legitimate fear and information could be used as a weapon, FDR was forced to be more secretive and less candid. Winfield includes anecdotes and assessments culled from FDR's personal communications with journalists and from diaries and accounts of those who worked closely with FDR. She also gleans insights from the 1933-1945 press conferences and radio transcripts, journalists' responses, news articles, memoirs, letters to the White House, and the era's newspapers.