FDR and the press
Sometimes fake news can be the result of what is left unsaid, the story which isn’t reported, information which the public is denied. It may seem impossible to believe today, but the majority of the American people were completely unaware, throughout the long presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that he was confined to a wheel chair, unable to walk without the assistance of heavy leg braces and something to lean against. Americans knew that their President had been stricken with polio, but the amount of his infirmity was a closely held secret.
FDR was the first President to employ a full-time Press Secretary. He was Steve Early, a professional journalist and the grandson of Confederate General Jubal Early. Early operated his office with an open door policy, but also enforced the demands of his boss. Photographs of the President in his wheelchair were not allowed. Nor were references to the President’s condition. Health reports, that the President had a cold for example, were vetted by the White House. Any reporter who violated any of the President’s rules would quickly find his credentials revoked, more importantly his employer would lose access to the White House as well.
Roosevelt liked to hold press conferences while sitting behind his desk, unburdened of the need to appear before cameras. The press conferences were less formal and more relaxed than today’s equivalent, and access to the President was limited to the conferences or to granted interviews. This allowed Roosevelt to control much of the news which emanated from his White House, including what wasn’t for dissemination until he was ready. FDR also enjoyed authority over the newly created FCC, which determined the status of licensing for American radio stations, and was not above flexing that muscle to ensure radio reporters toed the line with their print counterparts.
Much like another wealthy New Yorker who would come along many years later, Roosevelt took criticism, or even too probing of a question, as a personal insult and responded in kind. Roosevelt believed that any reporter who was not 100% for his programs was against them, and him personally, and those reporters were the subject of personal attacks and long grudges from the President. FDR once gave a German Iron Cross to a reporter with the instructions to give it to a columnist at his paper, who FDR said was giving aid to the enemy through the criticism of the administration in his columns.
The failure of the media to address Roosevelt’s health became critical during the election of 1944, when the clearly exhausted Roosevelt was obviously dying. Whether he would have been re-elected for a fourth time were his true condition known is anybody’s guess, but the failure of the media to inform the public of the President’s health, and the allowance of reports that he was fine, led the public to make a decision based on false premises, created from the lack of real news.