-- Recorded March 15, 2016 at Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA --

Republic of Spin covers more than one hundred years of politics and the rise of the White House spin machine, from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama. The story takes us behind the scenes to see how the tools and techniques of image making and message craft work. We meet Woodrow Wilson convening the first White House press conference, Franklin Roosevelt huddling with his private pollsters, Ronald Reagan’s aides crafting his nightly news sound bites, and George W. Bush staging his “Mission Accomplished” photo-op. We meet, too, the backstage visionaries who pioneered new ways of gauging public opinion and mastering the media―figures like George Cortelyou, TR’s brilliantly efficient Press Manager; 1920s ad whiz Bruce Barton; Robert Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower’s canny TV Coach; and of course the key spinmeisters of our own times, from Roger Ailes to David Axelrod.