15 Years Later, The Remaking Of a President
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 7, 2004; Page C01

The uplifting tone with which journalists are eulogizing Ronald Reagan is obscuring a central fact of his presidency: He had a very contentious relationship with the press.

Most reporters liked the Gipper personally -- it was hard not to -- but often depicted him as detached, out of touch, a stubborn ideologue. Sam Donaldson, Helen Thomas and company would do battle in those prime-time East Room news conferences that Reagan relished, and he would deflect their toughest questions with an aw-shucks grin and a shake of the head. Major newspapers would run stories on all the facts he had mangled, a practice that faded as it became clear that most Americans weren't terribly concerned.

The media dubbed him the Teflon president, and it was not meant as a compliment.

Reagan was, quite simply, a far more controversial figure in his time than the largely gushing obits on television would suggest.