Historical parallels between the press and the president
Article written by Melissa De Witte
"Last week, the White House suspended a reporter’s press credential after a tense exchange during a news conference. While some have called it an unprecedented move, Stanford communication scholar James Hamilton sees parallels to another U.S. president: Richard Nixon.
In an interview with the Stanford News Service, Hamilton talks about the historical dynamic between the press and presidencies.
Hamilton is the Hearst Professor of Communication in Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences and chair of the Department of Communication. His most recent book, Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism, chronicles the impact of accountability reporting in the United States.
Hamilton is also the director of the Stanford Journalism Program, co-founder of the Stanford Computational Journalism Lab and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He recently co-launched the Stanford Journalism and Democracy Initiative, a data-driven effort to help journalists find stories at a lower cost, to support local newsrooms explore public interest issues and fight against misinformation."