The President’s News Conference

Today’s subject? The Presidential Press Conference. We’re going to cover his July 1982 press conference which President Reagan noted in his diary that…went well – after feeling less than pleased about previous press conference. When and why did this tradition start? Since Woodrow Wilson held the first presidential press conference in March 1913, all of his successors have used the sessions as a basic part of their publicity strategies. The sessions have survived because reporters found them useful for developing information, citizens saw them as valuable for making judgments about their chief executives, and presidents and their staffs saw them as a primary strategy for explaining their policies. Of course, presidents could give speeches laying out their policies, but press conferences have become a major way to explain the intricacies of those policies as the proposals made their way through the legislative process.