Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 10, Number 47, DeMotte, Jasper County, 10 October 1940 — Washington Digest President in Power Holds Many Advantages Over His Opponents [ARTICLE]

Washington Digest President in Power Holds Many Advantages Over His Opponents

Political Party in Office Receives the Most Publicity Rjcause It ‘Makes’ the News; Opponents Are Merely ‘Talking Politics.’

By CARTER FIELD

(Released by Western Newspaper Union.) WASHINGTON.-—This idea of his being too busy for politics—haying to devote his every energy to the national preparedness program—is working out pretty well for President Roosevelt so far as publicity is concerned. This goes for the newspapers, for radio nbws and comment, and for the newsreels. It is perhaps better for the Roosevelt candidacy in the newsreels, proportionately, than in other mediums of reaching the public. All over the country opponents of~ the third term, whether Democrats or Republicans, are complaining that when they go to'* the movies they are treated to too high a percentage of Roosevelt propaganda which they have no way of avoiding unless they want to miss the rest of the show. They complain further that the New Dealers in the audience get plenty of chance to applaud their hero, but very frequently there is no showing of Wendell Willkie at all. Presidents Have Many Advantages Apparently this is just one of the little perquisites which modern invention has given to the man who happens to be in the White House. Obviously it might be true no matter whether he were a Democrat or a Republican, a man seeking merely his second term or a man seeking his fifth. Whatever the President of the United States does is news. There is no gettfhg away from that. If he dedicates a new dam, or park, or if he talks to a group of friends who visit him at his country estate, it is still news But when Wendell Willkie talks, he NOT being the President but merely a candidate for the office, that—to the minds of the gentlemen who decide what goes out in the newsreels—is just politics. This'is manifestly unfair, but it is difficult to see what could possibly be done-about it. Mere existence of the situation might be a good point against a third term, though it would exist if the race were merely for a second term. It is interesting to note that every modern development with respect to publicity has increased the advantage of the man IN office as against the man trying to get in In the good old days the sitting President was sometimes thought to be at a slight disadvantage. It was considered undignified for him to go barnstorming, and that was the only way he could reach the people. Man in Office Given Publicity Press conferences, in which the President, twice a week, pours out through the Washington newspaper correspondents just what he wants the country t'o„ read that afternoon or next morning, were unknown. Virtually no President until Theodore Roosevelt had the gift of publicity. Presidents did not have press agents, either on the public or national committee pay rolls. That day has gone forever. Now the government at Washington has a corps of publicity men running well up into the hundreds, all of them on the government pay roll. In addition, the national committee has a staff of publicity experts. In the case of the present administration, it has the advantage of having perhaps the greatest political publicity man of all time. Charles Michelson. If Wendell Willkie is elected, HE will have a tremendous advantage over his opponent four years hence, even if he should decide to eliminate the government press agents. Then what HE did would be news, while what his opponent said would merely be politics. ♦ • •