From Nixon to Trump: Six Decades of Presidential Assaults on the Press

At a July 24 dinner for the White House Correspondents’ Association, President Donald Trump ridiculed several outlets, continuing a legacy of presidential hostility toward the press. The commentary links his attacks to earlier episodes, beginning with Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign criticism and Vice President Spiro Agnew’s 1969 denunciation of TV news as elitist and biased. Agnew’s rhetoric, which singled out figures like a anchor at one outlet, set a precedent for using “objectivity” as a political weapon.

Subsequent decades saw similar confrontations, including the Nixon administration’s pushback against one outlet's documentary “The Selling of the Pentagon” and the government’s attempt to suppress the Pentagon Papers. In the present day, one outlet has undergone leadership changes, with Bari Weiss steering editorial decisions that favor the White House, echoing past efforts to silence dissent. The article concludes that invoking bias to silence journalists undermines the press’s role in holding power to account and endangers democratic norms.