Iowa Almanac
Iowa Almanac -- Wednesday, November 13, 2024
taking on the press. More from the Iowa Almanac in a moment. Hello, this is Mike Chapman. I've had a wonderful life and career from growing up in Waterloo to being a newspaperman for 35 years, writing 30 books and being inducted into 11 halls of fame. I'm proud to share my story in my latest book, A Journey, Reflections on 50 Years of Writing, Wrestling, Weightlifting, and Heroes. It's available now at totallyiowa.com. My life telling other people's stories, people you'll know from Ronald Reagan to Muhammad Ali to Dan Gable, all in a journey. Get your copy today at totallyiowa.com. It was never a secret that President Richard Nixon and the news media did not get along. At the height of the Vietnam War, protests were held across the country, and the media covered those protests. On November 13, 1969, the administration decided to fight back. Vice President Sparrow Agnew was set to speak to the Midwestern Regional Republican Conference in Des Moines. He took advantage of the occasion to criticize the news media. In a speech written by future presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan. The American people would rightly not tolerate this concentration of power in government. Is it not fair and relevant to question its concentration in the hands of a tiny enclosed fraternity of privileged men elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly sanction that licensed by government? The views of the majority of this fraternity do not, and I repeat, not represent the views of America. I want to make myself perfectly clear. I'm not asking for government censorship or any other kind of censorship. I'm asking whether a form of censorship already exists when the news that 40 million Americans receive each night is determined by a handful of men responsible only to their corporate employers and is filtered through a handful of commentators who admit to their own set of biases. This was merely the first of a series of speeches like this. In a later one, Agnew called the media pundits "nattering naybobs of negativism." And of course, Agnew himself had legal troubles that later forced him from office. But the Nixon administration's public criticism of the news media through Vice President Sparrow Agnew started in Des Moines on this date in 1969. And that's Iowa Almanac for November 13th. There's more online at IowaAlmanac.com. Until tomorrow, I'm Jeff Stein.