JFK Brought Live Pizzazz to Live TV Press Conferences

President John F. Kennedy calling on a reporter in his first live TV press conference,  He won the room and the home audience, at that time mostly stay-at-home wives and mothers.

With Joe Biden’s incoming administration, there has been a lot of attention to his relations with the press and plans for White House communications. He immediately reinstated routine daily briefings by his Press Secretary Jen Psaki, which his predecessor had abandoned entirely for months at a time before a Fox News-like blonde was brought on to calmly lie. 

The former Cheeto-in-Charge ditched formal press conferences when he found himself challenged and often being bested in sparring matches with reporters from the “Fake News” media.  He held joint press appearances with visiting foreign dignitaries where he would often take the bait of off-topic questions and babble embarrassingly off-script.  Latter he appeared for a while at daily press briefings on the Coronavirus sharing the podium with his medical experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, hack political appointees, and Vice President Mike Pence who was put in charge of the Covid-19 Task Force.  That pretty much ended when he suggested ingesting bleach as a treatment.  He went “over the heads” of the media to use Twitter to stir up his followers,  In the end most of his exchanges with the press were sometimes shouting answers to questions yelled at him as he boarded Marine One.

Joe Biden's Press Secretary Jen Psaki began daily press briefings on his first full day in office. 

Biden, by contrast, has been before the microphones and cameras daily as he announces his Cabinet appointments and policy initiatives, usual taking at least some questions.  He promises to conduct a transparent administration and the White House Press Pool has been assured that he will also conduct full-blown press conferences.

Biden is old enough to remember President John F. Kennedy’s adroit use of the televised press conference to speak to the American people.  On January 25, 1961 JFK had the first live TV press conference at the State Department auditorium where there was ample space for the more than 200 reporters then covering the White House.  Kennedy’s good-looks, wit, and charm and a bantering style with his questioners made the broadcasts some of the original must-see-TV and helped cement the image of Camelot.

Kennedy’s press conferences were so masterful and well-remembered that many people think he invented them.  Not so.  Presidents have been meeting with White House press corps since at least the Woodrow Wilson administration.  Before that chief executives occasionally sat for interviews but most communicated in speeches with the press not allowed to ask questions. 

From Wilson to Harry Truman’s early presidency, press conferences, as they came to be called, were conducted around the President’s desk in the Oval Office.  Other than still photographs no recordings were made. The sessions were held under the rule “for background only” meaning that the President could not be quoted directly without his permission.  In fact, by tacit agreement if the President inadvertently stuck his foot in his mouth, reporters often help him craft a more tactful response.  According to an article on the White House Historical Society web site:

President Truman, for example, was able to back away from a comment about Senator McCarthy that he made in a March 30, 1950, press conference. Truman said: “I think the greatest asset that the Kremlin has is Senator McCarthy.” When one of the reporters commented that the president's observation would “hit page one tomorrow,” Truman realized he had better soften the statement. He “worked” with reporters and allowed the following as a direct quotation: “The greatest asset that the Kremlin has is the partisan attempt in the Senate to sabotage the bipartisan foreign policy of the United States.”

During this period it may come as a surprise that not-so-silent Calvin Coolidge conducted by far the most of these sessions—521 or an average of 93 a year.  But he seldom approved direct quotes.  Franklin D. Roosevelt cultivated war relationships with the rapidly growing press corps of the Depression and World War II often calling reporters “Boys” in an affectionate congenial way not as an insulting put-down. And of course they were, with rare exceptions, all male.

Reporters jammed arout President Roosevelt's Desk during an off-the-record press conference.  Note the martini shaker on the President's desk--he often held these at the cocktail hour, good for the morning papers, not so good for afternoon dailies.

During the Truman administration the press sessions outgrew the Oval Office and the President moved them to the Indian Treaty Room in the East Wing of the Old Executive Office Building now known as Eisenhower Executive Office Building.  The ornate and formal room with marble floors and vaulted ceiling had previously been used as a library for the War and Navy Departments. Initially the same off-the-record rules applied in the new venue.

Under Dwight Eisenhower the press conferences officially went “on the record.”  The old informality and familiarity was replaced with more structure.  The President had to prepare himself much more carefully for each encounter to avoid embarrassing misstatements or errors resulting in a dramatic reduction in how often they were conducted. 

Even in the larger quarters of the Indian Treaty Room it was still a squeeze for the press.  Note the hand held film cameras recording the event and microphones placed around the room for questioners.  

Eisenhower held the first press conference to be broadcast on January 19, 1955.  He announced the event as an “experiment.”  It was filmed and segments were aired that evening on the short 15 minute network TV news programs and more extensive clips were sometimes shown on the Sunday morning news programs.  Newsreels, which were still a staple at movie theaters also showed clips.

After his success during his debates with Richard Nixon during the 1960 Presidential campaign Kennedy felt both confident and comfortable on TV.  He moved his first press conference from the over-crowded and noisy Treaty Room to the State Department auditorium and opted for a live broadcast.  He read a prepared statement on a famine in the Congo, the release of two American aviators from Soviet custody, and impending negotiations for an atomic test ban treaty. Then he opened the floor for questions from reporters, answering on a variety of topics including relations with Cuba, voting rights, and food aid to impoverished Americans.

His successors all tinkered with the format and location. 

The program broadcast during the day—and later sometimes in the early evening—was such a success that Kennedy repeated it about every two weeks, a more frequent schedule than any of his successors. Presidents Nixon and Ronald Reagan cut back the number of press conferences to approximately one every two months. They were moved to the more “Presidential” location of the East Room of the White House. And they were often held in the evening to attract a larger audience.  But that annoyed viewers and outraged network executives who lost lucrative prime time advertising revenue.  During the administration of Bill Clinton the networks rebelled and refused to broadcast the evening press conferences unless they were assured spectacular news would be made.  Chief executives turned more and more to prime time addresses from the Oval Office in times of crisis and found multiple other ways to communicate with the press.  The number of formal press conferences declined administration by administration.

An angry Trump scolding an irritating reporter in one of his increcingly rare press conferences.  In this photo note the reporter using a cell phone to record--or perhaps even live--stream the session.  

The press also changed.  In addition to traditional print and broadcast media, alternative web-based outlets, including those with heavy political bias on both the left and right became more important and demanded to be added to the official press pool.  Presidents also became more comfortable using those outlets.  The last disgraced occupant began to use them almost exclusively.

It remains to be seen how President Biden will adapt the tradition to his new circumstances.