On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency

by Mark Hertsgaard

Chronicles the relationship between Ronald Reagan and the press argues that his blunders and shirking of responsibility on the part of the news media has seriously impaired the nation's ability to recognize and react to presidential faults

Genres: Politics, History, American History, Nonfiction, Presidents

408 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1988

About the author

Mark Hertsgaard is an American journalist and the co-founder and executive director of Covering Climate Now. He is the environment correspondent for The Nation, and the author of seven non-fiction books, including Earth Odyssey (1998) and Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth (2011).
He has covered climate change, politics, economics, the press, and music since 1989. His best-known work as an author is On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency (1988), which described the way the Reagan White House "deployed raw power and conventional wisdom to intimidate Washington's television newsrooms." He has also written for magazines and newspapers such as The Guardian, Vanity Fair, Scientific American,Time, Harper's, and Le Monde. He has been a commentator for the public radio programs Morning Edition, Marketplace, and Living on Earth, and taught writing at Johns Hopkins and the University of California, Berkeley. Hertsgaard lives in San Francisco.

Reviews

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deserves a reprint/anniversary edition as we begin to grapple with what Reagan really was, rather than the myth of Reagan.

[alesbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Banger book, but it gets repetitive after a while. Still, great to learn about how the press works for the ruling class. I take one star off because it is describing a situation that very clearly is a class issue, but never uses that language, which makes it kind of roundabout, and requires you to have read some critical theory beforehand to understand how to properly grasp the situation.

[Lyn Jensen]

Some of the quotes from this book that show us how close the Reagan era is to right now:
"If you ask the Reagan people, they'll say his greatest success has been changing the framework of debate ... Now we no longer ask how the federal government can help people who need it, but why should the government have to support these people at all." -- Juan Williams, reporter, quoted on p. 33
"ABC News in 1984 established a journalistic hit squad to pursue Ferraro even as it spike separate and hard-hitting exposes of three powerful Reagan associates." -- p. 263-264
"This was the first time that dumbness, that lack of control, that disorganization, that stupidity, that naivete, were defenses" for a President in trouble." - p. 324
"Clearly it was newsworthy, not to mention entertaining, when high government officials took the Fifth Amendment, contradicted one another in testimony before congress, attempted suicide, suddenly fell ill and died of brain cancer, or were maneuvered out of the White House by the President's wife." - p. 329

[Glenn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found it to be a litany of supposed wrongs by the press. The author started with some promising theories to explore: a dejected press feeling blamed foe Vietnam and Watergate, big business running the press, or a public just tired of bad news. None of these were explored. The premise became one of if the press wasn't hammering Reagan on a daily basis, they weren't real journalists. The author really lost me with references to reporters 'allegedly' fighting for their stories implying they really didn't fight too hard. When the author refers to a failed suicide as an embarrassment and Hiroshima as a massacre are also instances making me question his spin on the facts. Some of the insider glimpses were enlightening. Especially the Michael Deaver and David Gergen interviews. The one sidedness of the book comes out when these two are referenced to support the author's claims and news executive's interviews are presented in a dismissive manner in an attempt to project due process.

[Jason Oringer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really digs into how the Reagan administration successfully changed and expanded the model of press manipulation, including key insights into structural changes in media that made this effective at the time and more so ever since.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good example of how the press is easily influenced and corrupted.

[Thomas Ray]

The general public thought the media were too easy on Reagan, too hard on Carter. Hertsgaard cites the polls in On Bended Knee. --Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power, p. 20.