YOUR A-TO-Z GUIDE TO THE MEDIA MAYHEM
DURING THE PRESIDENT’S FIRST SIX MONTHS IN OFFICE
The media have been the message for President Donald Trump almost every day of his presidency. And the message hasn’t been warm and encouraging. Trump’s demonization of reporters and news organizations — fake news! failing media! failing fake news media! — has become as routine as a morning coffee. His supporters expect it, delight in it, celebrate it. It’s a rallying cry and a unifying theme of his presidency. As he marks six months in office, the president’s forays into press criticism have become voluminous. Fortunately, they’re as easy to track as ABC:
ACOSTA, JIM.
CNN’s senior White House reporter has become a hero to some and an irritant to others (“others” primarily being the White House’s press operation). His disdainful tweets and comments about the administration’s ban on TV cameras at many briefings (see “B”) make him stand out among the generally staid White House press corps. Acosta says the White House has blackballed him from asking questions. If so, it’s probably liberating: He doesn’t have much to lose by being aggressive now.
BRIEFINGS.
The White House’s daily give-and-take with the press has become much less daily and features a lot less give from Trump’s press aides, Sean Spicer ( and now Anthony Scaramucci) and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. They have shortened the sessions, banned cameras, delayed audio broadcasts and provided fewer meaningful answers. There are periodic rumblings that the sessions will be ended altogether.
CROWD SIZE.
Trump picked his first official fight with the news media on Jan. 21, when he sent Spicer into the White House briefing room to denounce press coverage of attendance at his inauguration. Photographic evidence to the contrary, Spicer insisted the crowd was the largest ever. The epic rant proved to be great source material for “Saturday Night Live” (see “M”).
‘DEEP STATE.’
The alleged source of much of the media’s anti-Trump material. Some revelations have come from inside the intelligence community. But many of the sources for the endless array of palace-intrigue and who-shot-whom stories are people in Trump’s inner circle. Which means that the sinister-sounding “deep state” is actually just “the state.”
E ‘THE ENEMY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.’
This infamous declaration about the news media on Feb. 17 was the tweet equivalent of that 11-ton bomb the military dropped on Afghanistan a few months ago. The blast sent disorienting shock waves across a wide area, in view of the historical and constitutional role of the Fourth Estate. Even Nixon, who loathed the press, never went so far.
‘FOX AND FRIENDS.’
Their love is here to stay. Fox News’ morning program cheerfully promotes all things Trump, and Trump promotes “Fox and Friends” right back. F&F has long been Trump-friendly territory; he had a weekly call-in segment years before he announced he was running. Nowadays, the show practically sets presidential policy (Trump cited Andrew Napolitano’s comments on F&F as the source for the president’s baseless claim that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower).
GORKA, SEBASTIAN.
Steve Bannon took Gorka, a national-security wonk with hard-line views on Islam, with him when he left Breitbart News to become Trump’s chief White House strategist. Lately, Gorka has morphed into a combative TV spokesman for the president, joining the combative Kellyanne Conway and the combative Anthony Scaramucci in that role.
HANNITY, SEAN.
Trump’s other safe space on Fox News.
INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM.
Almost everything known about Trump and his associates’ involvement with Russia has been the result of digging by reporters. The complexity of his various controversies has invited comparisons to the Watergate era, perhaps the golden age of deep-dive reporting.
JOE AND MIKA.
A long war of words with “Morning Joe’s” co-hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, resulted in one of Trump’s ugliest tweets: “… Low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came ... 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!” Somehow, the president of the United States, the leader of the free world and commander of the mightiest military in history, is obsessed with what the hosts of a modestly rated morning cable-news show say about him.
KACZYNSKI, ANDREW.
The CNN reporter inspired a furious backlash after he tracked down the internet troll who claimed to have created a CNN-bashing GIF that Trump retweeted. CNN withheld the man’s name, explaining that it “reserves the right to publish his identity” if he posts “offensive” comments in the future. “Blackmail!” Trump supporters charged. CNN countered that it was just trying to ensure the man’s safety by not identifying him; Kaczynski said the man agreed.
LIBEL LAWS.
The president has repeatedly suggested that he would like to change them to make it easier for public figures (him) to sue news organizations and win. He can’t.
MELISSA MCCARTHY.
Has there ever been a recurring “Saturday Night Live” character based on a presidential press secretary? An Emmynominated recurring character based on a presidential press secretary?
‘NEGATIVE PRESS COVFEFE.’
Trump’s aborted attempt to complain about the media in May led to the coinage of a new quasiword and spurred a merchandising boomlet. The apparent slip — left unexplained and uncorrected on Twitter for so long that people wondered about the president’s health — eventually led Trump to one of his few self-joshing tweets.
ON AND OFF THE RECORD.
Trump spoke to reporters “off the record” (meaning the material couldn’t be reported) earlier this month on Air Force One. Or so reporters thought. Then the White House decided some of it could be reported. Reporters grumbled that this kind of unilateral determination after the fact was manipulative — the White House got to select only Trump’s more flattering moments, not the totality of what the president said.
PRESS CONFERENCES.
In an almost total break with presidential tradition, Trump has dispensed with most of them. His last full-blown one was on Feb. 16. Since then, he’s taken a limited number of press questions during “2-and-2” with world leaders. Trump has flouted even that custom, stiffing the news media while appearing with India’s prime minister and South Korea’s president in Rose Garden ceremonies.
QUIET TIME.
Is there any? Not much. Last month, Trump came within three minutes of his longest stretch without tweeting since he was elected. Total time between presidential tweets: About 46 hours.
REPORTERS.
Noted: There’s been no single dominant reporter on the Trump story, no Woodward or Bernstein bound for cinematic glory. Many of the best pieces have carried multiple bylines. But it’s still early .
‘SOURCES SAY.’
Trump asserted last week that stories containing anonymous attributions are bogus (“Remember, when you hear the words ‘sources say’ from the Fake Media, often times those sources are made up and do not exist” he tweeted). Trump offered no proof for this, primarily because he can’t; documented instances of such journalistic fraud are rare. But Trump knows fake sources: In the early 1990s, he created fictitious personas — “John
Miller” and “John Barron” — to feed favorable tidbits about himself to the New York press. He also quoted “an extremely credible source” who gave him damaging tips about President Obama’s birth certificate and student application. The information was bogus.
TILLERSON, REX.
Taking a page from his boss, the secretary of state barred reporters, save one at the last minute, on his first trip abroad in March. He later held a news conference in Saudi Arabia without informing American reporters. So much for telling foreign regimes about the value of a free press.
UNUSUAL PRACTICES.
See everything above. And below.
VESELNITSKAYA, NATALIA.
The Russian lawyer who showed up at a meeting brokered by a music publicist who told Donald Trump Jr. that she had dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. Eventually, persistent reporters found that eight people, not the originally disclosed four, attended the meeting.
WASHINGTON POST VS. NEW YORK TIMES.
Other news outlets have broken pieces of the Trump-Russia scandals, but two newspapers have provided the biggest scoops. Why these two? Possible answers: Both have large, experienced and well-connected Washington reporting staffs; both have long and distinguished histories of reporting on government secrecy; both can render stories in greater detail than broadcast journalists. Earlier this month, it was the Times’ turn, with a series of stories revealing Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russian nationals last year.
XENOPHOBES?
Breitbart News, the site that has produced three White House staffers, has come under criticism for alleged anti-immigrant and nativistic reporting. Breitbart makes no apologies for being in sync with the president’s “America first” policies.
YELLOW JOURNALISM.
The old name for fake news.
ZUCKER, JEFF.
As NBC’s entertainment boss, Zucker turned Trump into a giant celebrity by greenlighting “The Apprentice.” As CNN’s boss, he gave Trump’s campaign rallies hours of airtime. His thanks? Trump has called CNN “unwatchable” and “fake news” and suggested Zucker owes him. Trump also celebrated the resignation of three CNN reporters over a retracted story last month.