Stock rally also helps ‘real news’ providers

Should I be thanking President-elect Donald J. Trump?

As a business news reader, you know that, since Trump’s Nov. 8 victory, there’s been a stock market rally on Wall Street.

As of last Tuesday’s close, exactly three weeks after Election Day, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 789 points to close at 19,121, record territory. The Nasdaq composite also has seen a bull run, rising 86 points to 5,279. So has the Standard & Poor’s 500, which was up 65 points to 2,204.

All kinds of company stocks have benefifited from the so-called Trump rally. Such as news companies.

Yes, the bane of Trump’s existence — the very media members Trump lashed out at for being “deceitful” and “dishonest” — have been yuge winners on Wall Street.

Shares in two of the largest publicly traded newspaper and digital “mainstream media” companies, for example, rose by double-digit percentages in the past month.

What gives? One line of thinking is that Trump’s presidency, like his campaign, will be a boon for the news business. It’s expected to continue generating a level of citizen interest and activism, both pro and con, that will drive up audience and readership for major news organizations.

I have no idea how Trump feels about that, given the hotand-cold relationship he has with the press.

I can tell you the election, and Trump’s status as a parttime Palm Beacher, is certainly one reason it’s been a record year for audience numbers here at the Palm Beach Post’s online news sites.

There’s another reason, too: “Fake news.”

Facebook’s co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and the social media platform have come under intense criticism because of the posting of false news that some critics said bolstered Trump’s bid for the presidency.

In a Nov. 12 post on the site, Zuckerberg defended Facebook, saying it was a technology company, not a media conglomerate. He added it was ultimately up to Facebook’s users to choose which news to believe and dismissed the “crazy idea” that fake news on Facebook helped Trump win.

Maybe, maybe not. But I think the ongoing interest in government, plus the fake news flflap, have reminded Americans of the value and worth of credible news organizations. There are plenty of people — a silent majority if you will — who know an independent press is even more indispensable in a polarized, bitterly divided political arena, like the current one.

That’s good for our business. More importantly, it’s good for civil society and democracy.