try to hold all the news until?

1) Does " try to hold all the news until" mean " try to conceal all the news until"?
2) Does "taking his message on the road " mean "getting/picking up the information he wants on the road (by going deep among the masses/ordinary people)"?

Context:

This year, President Obama is doing something he’s never done before: He’s laying out some of his State of the Union message and policies ahead of his address to Congress on January 20.

Typically, we try to hold all the news until the day of the speech. And there will still be plenty of moments on the big night. But this year, we figured there’s no time like the present. (For those who closely follow the President’s executive actions, there is a “we can’t wait” joke in there somewhere.) Building on the momentum of the last several weeks, the President didn’t want to wait until the State of the Union to take new steps to help the middle class and lay out his ideas to keep strengthening the economy.
So today, the President is getting out of Washington and taking his message on the road — straight to the people his policies will affect most.