Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Robert Caro criticized conservative media coverage of President Obama during an appearance in New York City, describing it as “something quite horrible” and venomous.

Caro, known for his biographies of President Lyndon Johnson, spoke during a March 29 interview at Strand Books in Manhattan conducted by New York magazine writer Frank Rich as part of promotion for the paperback version of his fourth Johnson book, The Passage of Power.

Caro, who won Pulitzer Prizes for his third Johnson book, Master of the Senate, and his 1975 book about Robert Moses, has long used newspaper and media coverage in his research about U.S. political history.

Asked by Media Matters what he thought of today's conservative media coverage given his experience with historic news accounts, Caro said there had been strong conservative news coverage of past political figures, but stressed today's approach is worse. 

“I think today is something [different], the venom, the absolute venom, whatever we think is really underneath it all, it is something quite horrible,” he said, later adding, “Here in New York you live in a different world. I was just giving some lectures and you know when you get out in the rest of the country you realize the depth of the anti-Obama feeling.”

Caro's comments follow years of conservative media figures smearing President Obama and his family with outlandish conspiracies, regular falsehoods, trumped-up pseudoscandals, and outright attacks.