Those who say that Reagan 'went around the media' and 'spoke directly to the people' to get his message across ... how exactly was he able to do that? How were people able to hear Reagan absent the filter of the mainstream media moreso than they are able to do today?
Reagan was The Great Communicator, and he richly deserved that title. He had a gift for connecting with our thoughts and emotions -- primarily through his optimism and good humor, in my opinion. But he was still constrained by the media. He was dependent upon them to broadcast his speeches, cover his press conferences, report his actions. A very small percentage of the American people at large heard the words from within the same room in which he spoke them. The rest of us heard them on the TV, on the radio, or read them in the newspaper. I don't think he went around the media so much as he pushed his message through it.