The Press and the Modern Presidency: Myths and Mindsets from Kennedy to Election 2000, 2nd Edition

(Hardback, 2nd Revised edition)

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Scandal and sex sell, even in the serious business of presidential news coverage. The media deference shown to Kennedy and the scrutiny applied to Clinton illustrate the changed relation between the two, and bookend this pertinent, updated 1998 Choice "Outstanding Academic Book" award-winner. Liebovich tackles misconceptions about the media's role in politics; how chief executives cooperate with and manipulate the press as it suits their needs; and how ratings pressures have bent coverage of elections and the Executive Branch for the worse. Well-written, thorough, and the only book to explore the changing relation between the press and the presidency in the later twentieth century, students and researchers alike will profit from reading this work written by one of America's leading scholars in the field. For students interested in communications, history, or contemporary American politics, it is an unparalleled administration-by- administration introduction to the complex and intertwined workings of two of the most powerful and influential forces at work in American politics today. It furthermore provides researchers with a solid historical explanation of how both presidential politics and political news coverage have come to be popularly reviled and discounted.

Reviews

[t]his work makes an important contribution to the literature. It is entertaining and educational, and should appeal to academic and mass audiences alike. Across the period it examines, The Press and the Modern Presidency is the best book available to date.-Congress & The Presidency
"this work makes an important contribution to the literature. It is entertaining and educational, and should appeal to academic and mass audiences alike. Across the period it examines, The Press and the Modern Presidency is the best book available to date."-Congress & The Presidency
"[t]his work makes an important contribution to the literature. It is entertaining and educational, and should appeal to academic and mass audiences alike. Across the period it examines, The Press and the Modern Presidency is the best book available to date."-Congress & The Presidency

Author Bio

LOUIS W. LIEBOVICH is Professor of Journalism at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Professor Liebovich has also written The Press and the Origins of the Cold War, 1944-1947 (1988, Praeger) and Bylines of Despair: Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression, and the U.S. News Media (1994, Praeger).