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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that flips through the pages of history to deliver

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Speaker 1: old news in a new way. I'm Gabe Lucier, and

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Speaker 1: today we're talking about an actual case of fake news

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Speaker 1: in the American media. The day when a respected newspaper

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Speaker 1: famously and falsely declared Dewey beats Truman. The day was

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Speaker 1: November third, nineteen forty eight. The Chicago Tribune wrongly declared

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Speaker 1: Thomas Dewey the winner of the previous day's presidential election.

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Speaker 1: In reality, the race had gone to the incumbent President,

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Speaker 1: Harry S. Truman, but since the Tribune had gone to

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Speaker 1: press before the polls had even closed, there was no

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Speaker 1: way for the paper to know that. So instead, the

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Speaker 1: managing editor just took a guess on the election's outcome

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Speaker 1: and ran Dewey defeats Truman as the front page headline.

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Speaker 1: The prediction was disproved before the ink on the papers

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Speaker 1: had even dried, but by that point it was too late.

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Speaker 1: One hundred and fifty thousand copies had already hit the streets. J.

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Speaker 1: Loy pat Maloney was the managing editor responsible for the

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Speaker 1: bad call, but to be fair, there were some extenuating circumstances.

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Speaker 1: Most critically, the Tribune was in the middle of a

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Speaker 1: printer's strike, and as a result, they had to go

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Speaker 1: to press much earlier than they normally would have. That

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Speaker 1: put Maloney in a tough spot on election night. Competing

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Speaker 1: papers with later deadlines could wait for the official results,

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Speaker 1: but he didn't have that luxury. The safe play would

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Speaker 1: have been to run a headline about the race being

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Speaker 1: too early to call, but then if a rival paper

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Speaker 1: ran the actual outcome, the Tribune would look outdated and

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Speaker 1: no one would buy it. As the early addition deadline approached,

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Speaker 1: Maloney decided to take a chance and print the outcome.

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Speaker 1: He considered most likely that New York Governor Thomas Dewey

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Speaker 1: would defeat Truman in a landslide, and again, to be fair,

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Speaker 1: Dewey was considered the front runner by most political pundits

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Speaker 1: and members of the press. The most recent polling showed

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Speaker 1: Dewey leading Truman by a full five points, and Life

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Speaker 1: magazine was so confident in the outcome that it featured

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Speaker 1: a photo of Dewey with the caption the next President

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Speaker 1: of the United States well before election day, even the

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Speaker 1: Tribune's own Washington correspondent, Arthur Sears Henning, thought Dewey had

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Speaker 1: it in the bag. In his article, the one printed

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Speaker 1: under the incorrect headline, Henning went so far as to

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Speaker 1: say the Republican candidate had quote won a sweeping victory,

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Speaker 1: which he then characterized as a repudiation of the New Deal.

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Speaker 1: Maloney saw the polls, read Henning's article, and felt assured

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Speaker 1: that Dewey was a shoe in. But what he did

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Speaker 1: didn't realize, or didn't bother to find out, was that

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Speaker 1: the last poll had been taken in mid October. Not

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Speaker 1: only that Henning's article had been based on information provided

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Speaker 1: by Dewey's own campaign manager, complete with all the bias

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Speaker 1: that entailed. Neither Maloney, Henning, nor the polls had accounted

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Speaker 1: for all the headway Truman had made during his extensive

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Speaker 1: whistle stop campaign tour earlier that summer. Knowing that he

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Speaker 1: wouldn't get much love in the press, Truman had skipped

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Speaker 1: the sit down interviews in favor of barn storming across

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Speaker 1: the country, covering nearly twenty two thousand miles by election day.

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Speaker 1: At one point, he was delivering as many as thirteen

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Speaker 1: speeches in a single day, and during every one of

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Speaker 1: them he would earnestly ask the crowd to help him

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Speaker 1: keep his job as president. That heartfelt appeal helped endear

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Speaker 1: him to the public as a political underdog, a narrative

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Speaker 1: that was reinforced by news outlets such as The Tribune,

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Speaker 1: which had already written off his campaign. Governor Dewey, on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, hardly campaigned at all. Perhaps he too

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Speaker 1: had been lulled into complacency by his glowing press and

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Speaker 1: strong poll numbers. In any case, the election didn't go

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Speaker 1: the way that most people expected. At about ten thirty

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Speaker 1: p m. On Election night, not long after Pat Maloney

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Speaker 1: approved his fateful headline, radio bulletins began reporting that the

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Speaker 1: race was surprisingly close, so close that when it came

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Speaker 1: time to print the second edition a few hours later,

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Speaker 1: Maloney was feeling decidedly less bullish. He ignored the presidential

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Speaker 1: race completely and swapped in a headline about the state

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Speaker 1: elections instead, Democrats make sweep of state offices. Maloney's judgment

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Speaker 1: proved much better the second time around, as Truman was

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Speaker 1: soon declared the true winner. The president had won twenty

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Speaker 1: eight of the forty eight states in existence at the time,

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Speaker 1: securing three hundred and three electoral votes compared to Dewey's

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Speaker 1: one eight nine. In most cases, the Tribune's inaccurate headline

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Speaker 1: would have been quickly forgotten. After all, they were hardly

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Speaker 1: the first newspaper to report something untrue. But the following day,

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Speaker 1: on November fourth, something happened to ensure the headline would

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Speaker 1: live in infamy. It happened when President Truman was traveling

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Speaker 1: back to Washington from Saint Louis by rail. Before departing,

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Speaker 1: he stepped to the rear platform of the train for

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Speaker 1: a photo op and was handed a copy of The

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Speaker 1: Tribune's early edition. The result was a now famous photo

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Speaker 1: of a gleeful President Truman holding up the headline that

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Speaker 1: had wrongly predicted his political ruin. One reason Truman looked

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Speaker 1: so happy in the photo, aside from having just won

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Speaker 1: the presidency, is that he knows he's getting revenge on

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Speaker 1: one of his biggest critics. The Tribune, a paper which

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Speaker 1: leaned conservative, had opposed most of his progressive policies while

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Speaker 1: in office, and had once even referred to him as

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Speaker 1: a quote nincompoop in an editorial. Given that it's safe

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Speaker 1: to assume the photo was planned in advance. Truman knew

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Speaker 1: that calling a presidential election prematurely was every news outlet's nightmare,

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Speaker 1: so he made sure that the moment would be preserved

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Speaker 1: in history for his friends at the Tribune to relive

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Speaker 1: over and over again. And if you think a move

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Speaker 1: like that is too petty or unbefitting of a US president,

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Speaker 1: well then brother, you haven't been paying attention. I'm gay

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Speaker 1: Bluesier and hopefully you now know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. You can learn even

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Speaker 1: more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and

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Speaker 1: Instagram at TDI HC Show, and if you have any

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Speaker 1: feedback you'd like to share, feel free to send it

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Speaker 1: my way by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank

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Speaker 1: you for listening. I'll see you back here again soon

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Speaker 1: for another day in History class.