Presidential attacks against journalism, of course, can go beyond words. Nixon’s anger against the media led his administration to wiretap reporters’ phones and order the Internal Revenue Service to harass journalists he disliked. When the Obama Justice Department investigated leaks, it secretly seized records of more than 20 Associated Press phone lines.

The Obama White House has also threatened to prosecute journalists who don’t cooperate with its investigations into information leaks. So far it has pursued criminal charges in eight cases against whistleblowers, five more than all previous presidents combined. As a result, government workers increasingly fear talking with reporters, according to a Committee to Protect Journalists report.

To be sure, these recent presidents have not been as savage toward the press as Nixon and his aides. Borrowing a tactic used by Lyndon Johnson to stop unfavorable newspaper stories, Nixon vowed to “screw around” with the lucrative TV licenses of The Washington Post after it began investigating Watergate. John Mitchell, Nixon’s campaign manager and former attorney general, once infamously threatened Post Publisher Katharine Graham when Woodward and Bernstein asked him about a secret campaign slush fund that paid for the Watergate burglary and other espionage activities. “Katie Graham’s gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that’s published,” Mitchell screamed at them.