Page 164 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

OFFICE OF
WHITE HOUSE
Westley played a major COMMUNICATION 153
part in the two leading communication research texts.
He wrote a chapter and did much of the editing in Introduction to Mass Com-
munications Research (1958), edited by Ralph O. Nafziger and David Manning
White. He was coeditor and had a chapter in Research Methods in Mass Com-
munication (1981). He received the Paul J. Deutschmann Award for contribu-
tions to research from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication in 1985.
Westley was a faculty member in journalism at the University of Wisconsin
from 1946 to 1969 and chair of the Department of Journalism and a faculty
member at Kentucky from 1969 to 1983.
SOURCE: Edwin Emery and Joseph P. McKerns, "AEJMC: 75 Years in the Making,"
Journalism Monograph 104, November 1987.
Guido H. Stempel HI

WHITE, THEODORE H. (1915-1986) created a genre of political "insider"
reporting with his series of books The Making of the President, which chronicled
four successive presidential campaigns, beginning with John F. Kennedy's vic-
tory over Richard Nixon in 1960. But while his Pulitzer Prize-winning The
Making of the President: I960 was a revelation for its style and insight, rum-
blings about his lack of objectivity and patriotic sentimentality grew through his
1964 and 1968 books into criticisms of hero-worship and undisguised sympathy
for the Establishment. Rather than write the fifth such book in 1976, White
instead penned his autobiography, In Search of History, which was hailed as a
minor classic. In it, White recalled his humble beginnings in Boston, his cov-
erage of the China front in World War II for Time magazine, and his coverage
of postwar Europe, first for the Overseas News Agency and later for Reporter
magazine. White's last book, America in Search of Itself: The Making of the
President, 1956-1980, examined the administrations of U.S. presidents from
Eisenhower to Reagan.
SOURCE: Contemporary Authors (CD-ROM).
Marc Edge

WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF COMMUNICATION was established by Pres
ident Richard Nixon. It serves as a tool of presidential policy by promoting the
presidential agenda in every way possible. The office replaced the press secretary
as the main link of the White House to the media. It is a public relations arm
of the White House, with the aim of setting the public agenda in line with
executive policy. The office oversees the dissemination of policy and tries to
ensure that the entire presidential team follows the same policy. The public
agenda is used to fashion presidential statements. That public agenda is deter-
mined by means of focus groups and opinion polls. The office generates sound
bites for presidential use to maximize every public occasion to further policy.