TRUMP AND THE MEDIA: Part 1

This essay is a follow-up to “How Did We Get into this Mess: Politics and the Media”. The aforementioned essay serves as a foundation for this discussion, pertaining to President Trump’s relationship with the media. The first seven months, of his presidency, provide an excellent case study of many of the nuances that exist in the complex relationships between those people in power and the political journalists who cover them.

There are generally accepted ideas, regarding how politicians and government leaders interact with the media. There is the symbiotic relationship characterized by the one providing a story and the one writing the story each benefitting. On the other hand, an adversarial relationship is one which results when certain politicians and governmental leaders do not trust the media, and some media respond by attempting to discredit those in power who see the media as adversaries.

Whether politicians and the media have a symbiotic or adversarial relationship, sound journalism is critical to the survival of our democracy. Furthermore, making money is essential to the survival of media corporations. These two realities often clash, because the media have an inherent bias to maximize profits, and sometimes the way a story is covered drives viewership or readership toward or away from a particular media company. The result, due to ratings, is either gaining advertising revenue or potentially losing it.

An interesting case study, of symbiotic relationships, during this presidency, is best exemplified by the Fox News July 11, 2017, interview that the president’s son, Donald, Jr. had on “Hannity”. The interview discussed the meeting, in Trump Tower, with a Russian attorney and others who allegedly had ties to the Russian government. This meeting fueled suspicions of Trump’s campaign colluding with an adversary of the United States.

ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN and PBS, no doubt, would have relished hosting Donald, Jr., but he chose Fox News. The chart below provides a hint, as to why the cable network was selected by the president's namesake. Take a close look at the network viewership's partisan/ideological breakdown. Which network has a lock on conservative and Republican voters? Would not these viewers be the most sympathetic to Donald’s explanation of the events surrounding his decision to meet with the Russians? Furthermore, if Fox News' viewership was getting a bit concerned about the Trump presidency, would it not make the most sense to reach out to this critical constituency, to allay their concerns?

Host Sean Hannity, while being a friendly interviewer, asked the difficult questions; however, one would expect that the interviewers of other mainstream and cable channels would have been more persistent in their effort to rattle their guest. Fox News was a safe venue for Donald, Jr., to explain the meeting, without worrying about being backed into a corner, by a hostile interviewer. Of paramount importance, landing this guest allowed Fox News to achieve a rating coup, which meant money in the bank for the network.

What was the impact of the interview? "Hannity" was up 20% in total viewers. Furthermore, about 664,000, of "Hannity‘s" 2.9 million total viewers, fell in the news age demographic of 25-54, which represented a 41% increase over the show's performance, for the same night, one year ago. (deadline.com, July 12, 2017)

In the same time slot, MSNBC’s "Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell" clocked 2.34 million viewers and 576,000, in the age demographic of 25-54. Pulling up the rear, "CNN Tonight" logged 1.13M viewers, including 369,000 in the 25-54 age group. (deadline.com, July 12, 2017) Clearly, Fox News was the beneficiary of a symbiotic relationship with the Trump administration, as well as the president's son, and likely scored some serious advertising money, along the way.

Did the president benefit from his son's interview? It is difficult to determine, if not impossible, from the job approval data presented later in this essay, to know how one event moved public opinion. Accepting that caveat, the Gallup daily tracking of presidential favorability offered some insight, as to the approval trend, during the time surrounding Donald, Jr.'s interview.

Gallup Daily: Trump Job Approval tracking poll indicates that the interview may have slightly aided the president's approval rating; however, the impact of this single interview must not be overemphasized, especially given the upward trajectory in Trump's approval numbers that preceded it. Keeping in mind that each data point represents a rolling three-day average, here is a snapshot of data from June 6, 2017, to July 26, 2017. The arrow points to the date of the interview.

Source:www.gallup.com

Did the interview shore up President Trump's support among Republican and independent voters? If one looks at the July 10-16 weekly average, which includes the interview date, the president's job approval rating actually bumped up two points from the previous week; however, among independents, his approval decreased two points.

Overall, Fox News benefitted from the symbiotic relationship, due to dramatic ratings; however, it is much less clear whether President Trump gained much from having his son interviewed by Sean Hannity. Regarding the latter point, one is left to ponder what would have happened to his approval rating, if Donald Jr. had avoided being interviewed or chose a more hostile network.

There have been few presidents who have relished an adversarial relationship with the media more than President Trump; CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and the Washington Post have been more than willing to engage him. Consumers of CNN and MSNBC, as well as the above-listed newspapers, are keenly aware of the tone of their coverage. It is not drip by drip but more of a series of flash floods of negative Trump stories, especially on CNN. Trump’s frequent retort is to claim that the aforementioned media outlets engage in fake news.

President Trump’s response to the coverage of the alleged collusion between his campaign and the Russian government provides a good example of the president’s adversarial modus operandi. Roll Call reports, in its story of February 16, 2017, that the president tweeted at 5:40 AM, February 15, “The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. @MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great!” A little over an hour later, he tweeted, “This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign.”

Twitter is a key component of Trump’s media strategy. With over 45 million followers, it allows him to have a rapid response to breaking news. The first tweet above received 104,078 “likes” and was retweeted 25,771 times. The second tweet was “liked” 117,495 times and retweeted 27,457.

Another example of the president’s adversarial relationship with some media was the Twitter dust-up with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hosts, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, in midsummer. (The Blaze, July 5, 2017)

“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came...” read one tweet, which continued in another, “…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”

The targets of the Twitter assault retaliated. MSNBC tweeted, “It’s a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job.” Meanwhile, Brzezinski and Scarborough said the following:

"President Trump launched personal attacks against us Thursday, but our concerns about his unmoored behavior go far beyond the personal…America's leaders and allies are asking themselves yet again whether this man is fit to be president. We have our doubts, but we are both certain that the man is not mentally equipped to continue watching our show, “Morning Joe.”” (CNN, June 30, 2017).

Guess what the ratings were for “Morning Joe”, after the Twitter storm? As reported by MEDIAITE, Nielsen Media Research found that an average of 1.6 million people watched the show, no doubt curious to see how the co-hosts would respond to the president’s tweets. Additionally, Mika and Joe won the coveted 25-54 age demographic. Pushed along by the controversy, “Morning Joe” beat “Fox and Friends” in viewership, a rare win for MSNBC, in this time slot. (MEDIAITE, July 5, 2017)

The above examples are a fraction of a fraction of the number of times that the president either sought a symbiotic relationship with the media or was enjoined, by the media, in adversarial exchanges. The question that begs answering is how are the two actors, in this political theater, playing with the general public? There are three metrics that may provide a clue: presidential approval ratings, media viewership, and equity share prices. Part 2 attempts to delve into these metrics. Stay tuned!