Quotes from Timothy Crouse

But the Nixon Administration gave the press an identity of its own, separate from the public interest, and then began to characterize the press either as friendly or hostile or what have you.

Cassie Mackin was the first, if not the only, member of the press to point out that the emperor had no clothes. She opened her report by observing that "the Nixon campaign is, for the most part, a series of speeches before closed audiences, invited guests only.

Campaign coverage began to settle into a neat and comfortable science around the time of Theodore Roosevelt, the first big-time American politician to rationalize the handing out of news.

In fact, you could effectively say that Richard Nixon has abolished the Presidential press conference as an institution. He may grant two or three a year, but when they're that infrequent they don't really mean anything.