FDR's War Against the Press

In the 1936 election, Roosevelt claimed that 85 percent of the newspapers were against him….Roosevelt’s relationship with radio was warmer.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, revised the media rules in profound ways. Like Trump, he feuded with the mainstream media; like Trump, he used a new medium as a direct pipeline to the people. He also used the government’s machinery to suppress unfavorable coverage, a fate we hope to avoid in the age of Trump.