Despite the fact that they have many ways to communicate with the public, presidents tend to gravitate towards certain formats for meeting with reporters. This is illustrated in the table below, which shows the number of times that a President has held an on-the-record press conference in each two year period from Kennedy to present. The total for a president includes Solo conferences and Prime-Time conferences (the latter being televised, live, in the East Room).
Press conferences have been a significant part of presidential publicity since they became popular during the Kennedy era. They brought with them the glamour of a new leader and his activist policy agenda, the tension between an often combative White House and its reporters, and the opportunity for the public to see their leaders in person. Television brought the press conference to a larger audience than ever before, but also altered how the media viewed the presidency and its role in the nation’s affairs.
After the scandal of the US government’s account of the U2 spy plane incident during the Eisenhower administration, reporters lost their willingness to take at face value the accounts they were given by the White House about their interactions with the President. The result was a decline in the number of on-the-record presidential news conferences.
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