“ I want you to know that we are fighting the fake news. Its fake. Phony. Fake”. Every president shares a different relationship with the media. Donald Trump has a complicated relationship with the media. He claimed “Fake news” ( stories that portray his presidency in an hasty manner or news that speak about the ongoing investigation into whether Russia influenced the 2016 election. His relationship with the media is mutually beneficial for both parties as both sides use the other for publicity and reach. This is proven as The New York Times have gained subscribers after being repeatedly attacked by President Trump whereas he uses it to supplement his motives. To begin with, Trump has his own biased opinions on reporters and claims they are a “disgrace” and are very “dishonest people”, he also describes them as “an outrage”, to further prove his point President Trump also tweeted about this issue. This draws us to a fact that he is an extremely powerful politician and he absolutely despises the press but can’t seem to live without it. According to reporters from the New York times, “its his oxygen; it keeps him alive, emotionally and politically.
To get a deeper insight on this bitter relationship, it is important to understand the importance of this battle between President Trump and the media. Every individual has a different perspective on this sensitive matter and It is impossible to have the same opinions. However, It is strongly believed that though the media was extremely vital to his victory he instead declared war on the media, making them rivals. He sometimes fails to understand that the media wants to cover their story and him being the president makes it essential news for the society. The media does not intend to meet Trump on the battlefield and fight a war, they are simply doing their job. However there are two sides to a coin, where as some believe that President Trump is “one of the best things that’s happened to the media in years” increasing their audience interest in his antics and creating a platform of journalists to swarm over. In addition, what Trump enjoys is a political pretense of war with the press. This whole situation is then used as a gimmick and entertainment to the audience. This is also known as a “kayfabe” aspect added to it.
Furthermore, The media uses trump as a Marketing tool, it is evident how Trumps relationship with the press is the extent to which the pretense of an oppositional relationship with the White House, this clearly portrays a marketing tool. Their explicit marketing around the White house is undebatable. Trump has been fairly goo to the mainstream news media, increasing clicks, ratings and subscriptions at a time when the broader economies of the industry had grown difficult due to social media websites such as Facebook and google competing with the rising share of advertising revenue. Trump also threatened regulatory retaliation against Amazon for post articles he didn’t like and tried to create a lawsuit against the times. (Yglesias, "Donald Trump's phony war with the press, explained," 2018)
Secondly, the media is a “convenient foil” for Trump as disagreeing with the press is worthwhile for him as it drives a lot of media coverage which to him is rewarding. Trump has frequently espoused a “no such thing as bad publicity” theory of media relations, and that tactic served him extremely well in the Republican Party presidential primary when press attention was a genuinely scarce resource amid a crowded field.
However, what’s most important to Trump isn’t any of the real crushing of the media, but simply driving the narrative to the society that the media is at war with him. With that pretense in place, critical coverage and unflattering facts can be dismissed even as Trump selectively courts the press to inject his own preferred ideas into the society.
President Trump first joined twitter in 2009 and his marketing team had to create a new username for him called @therealdonaldtrump as a mockery account was made using @donaldtrump. In the earlier days, Trump did not post many tweets as initially they were drafted by another man who was approved by Trump before the tweets were being sent. There was also confusion as a lot of different devices such an Andriods and iPhones had access to his account and posted for him, in order to prove this a sentiment analysis was done. However he now has two accounts which he uses actively. A significant example of one of his tweets going viral is the one about “Covfefe”. He sent out a tweet on May 2017 which stated “Despite the constant negative press Covfefe”. This went viral and was mocked all around the world by both the media and the society. A review found on January 2016 that one in every eight posts by Trump on Twitter "was a personal insult of some kind. Trump insulted 394 places, people, and things on Twitter, ranging from politicians to journalists and news outlets to entire countries
President Trump is very active on Twitter and Is described as the “first social media and reality TV president” . Right before the fourth of July, He tweeted “My use of social media is not presidential, its modern day presidential. He ended his tweet with “Make America Great Again”. Every tweet he posts embarks a whole new controversy in the media or a mockery. The memes created by the society and the extent to which the media takes some of his tweets is rather unusual. I do agree that sometimes he makes powerful statements that need to be justified but the media covers his stories/tweets as the most important facts rather than talking about current, important issues in the world. President Trump frequently uses twitter to make comments on celebrities and other politicians. He mainly relied on Twitter during his presedential campaign. However, after he won he started to post a lot of controversial information which was mostly false. It was stated that 70% of respondents claimed that his tweets were hurting his motives and 17% said they were helpful. Trump also claimed that social media made it possible for him to win the election with less money being spent.
Secondly, it is difficult to evaluate if the Press treats President Trump fairly. President Trump has always spoken about the Media badly as he has mentioned “These are sick people. If you wanted to discover the source of the division in our country, look no further than the fake news and the crooked media." Although, truth to be told I strongly believe that the media treated trump fairly, 80% of the Republicans say that the media doesn’t treat Trump right where while 84% of Democrats and 55% of independents believe the president gets a fair shake from the press. On the other hand, 59% say Trump treats the mainstream media unfairly. The world has a lot of differing opinions and every individual can be very subjective. There is no exact way to quantify if the media treats President Trump fairly or not however we can still observe the negative stories that have been published directing Trump. I strongly think that the Media is treating President Trump fairly due to the fact that most of the nations popular and important newspapers with a conservatie editorial bent have asked their reporters to give a trump a fair coverage. A renowned man named Gerad Baker at the wall street journal also demanded that his staff treat trump fairly. It is unclear whether these editors gave their reporters examples of where they had been unfair to Trump. It’s fair to infer that the editors felt the reporters had been unfair. The post assigned 24 reporters to fill the pages of a book about Trump’s past and business dealings which also portrays that he was given Justice
If 24 reporters and a book seemed excessive, it may be a reaction to Trump’s frequent negative responses to the press. Trump banned dozens of reporters from coverage, including the entire staff of the Post (though like most bans, the one with the Post didn’t last). The New York Timescatalogs the number of negative comments Trump makes on social media against others, media figures and reporters included. The comments range from “sad” to “clown” to “dumb” and “pathetic.” One of Trump’s off-the-cuff campaign promises was to “open up libel laws” to make it easier to sue the press.
The biggest problem in determining whether the media has been fair to Trump so far is determining exactly what constitutes fair coverage. Trump’s first big battle with the media came when Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly asked Trump about past negative comments about women at a Republican debate.
. To conclude, His relationship with the media is of paramount importance to the world as there are so much critical health, safety, world issues that the society is forgetting to pay attention to due to some of the negative comments Trump makes on twitter or in any of his speeches. Most of the attention is drawn towards “fake news”. It is critical for the media to know what information to make viral and what to keep private as it can impact individuals in multiple ways. President Trump is aware that these tweets distract everyone from the real enemy and critical issues like health care and climate change. This is just what President Trump wants. Let’s frustrate him by avoiding him which will make him go crazy.
If only all the media would ignore President Trump’s irrelevant tweets and all the cable and late-night hosts would stop talking about them, their impact would dissipate immediately. The president’s ridiculous video of his wrestling match with CNN and his attack on Mika Brzezinski don’t deserve the attention they received. What if he tweeted and nobody paid attention except his followers? This is the best solution.
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