(Roughly) Daily

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As we titter over Twitter, we might note that it was on this date in 1925 that Calvin Coolidge became the first U.S. President to have his inaugural address broadcast (on the radio).  Indeed, his retiring reputation notwithstanding, Coolidge was a veritable master of the media of his day:  in 1923 (as he served out Harding’s term) he became the first president to have a Congressional address broadcast; then in 1924, he gave the first broadcast political speech; that same year he obliged Lee De Forest, and became the first President to appear in a film with recorded sound.  Coolidge’s mastery of the media extended to policy as well: he engineered, then signed the Radio Act of 1927, which assigned regulation of radio to the newly created Federal Radio Commission.  And he understood the power of the press– he gave 529 press conferences, meeting with reporters more regularly than any President before or since.

Coolidge delivering his inaugural address