Newspaper Columns

Trump Counterpunches Big Media

by | Mar 2, 2017 | Newspaper Columns | 0 comments

You see your president wage war against Big Media. You see Big Media wage war against your new president. Do you see the strategies he deploys? Clever strategies.

Big Media assaulted previous presidents. Especially Republican presidents. Those presidents complained. But rarely did they try to counter the assaults. Apart from whining. And calling “Foul!”

Trump wields a different strategy from theirs. They whined. Knew they could not win. He attacks. And more. He dares to win. Or to gain more ground against Big Media than they did.

If you doubt that Big Media wage war on him, consider a few items: Media Research Center analyzed how broadcast news covered his first 30 days. Found that NBC, CBS and ABC devoted 54 percent of their nightly news programs to President Trump and his people.

Think about that. We have a world full of disasters and triumphs. We have a world of villainous and heroic activities. We have a country packed with newsworthy events. And yet, of all the news in this big world, our networks chose to spend over half their efforts on Trump. On blistering him.

They were hostile to him in 88 percent of their coverage. They crowded their stories with comments from dissatisfied and angry people. Their choice. The anchors added their own openly biased remarks to what should be straight news.

NBC even featured an App that will “harness the energy created on the left to oppose President Donald Trump’s actions and policies”.

Big Media was already attacking Trump during the campaign. One night alone the big three networks ran 23 negative stories on Trump. On one night of news!  Oh, they ran one negative story on Hillary.

On one day the New York Times ran 11 negative stories on Trump. And none on Hillary. This was just before the election. When alarming Hillary emails filled the air like October leaves.

So…what is the President’s strategy? New weapons. And guerilla warfare.

Weapon: Call the enemy the enemy. Call Big Media fake. Call them the opposition. Call them liars. To their faces. Insult them on national tv. This is way beyond whining. This is an assault.

Weapon: Spike the enemies’ guns. They love the traditional press conferences. They love their White House Correspondents Dinner. They expect presidents to sit down for lengthy interviews with them. Trump skips the dinner. Skips the interviews. Changes the rules for press conferences.

Weapon: Use Breitbart. And other alternative news sites. Count on Drudge. Use Facebook. Use Instagram. Use Twitter. These new media post staggering numbers. And their numbers are growing. Numbers for old media are declining.

Weapon: Speak directly to the public when possible. Avoid the filters of Big Media. This is why he staged huge events in the campaign. It is why he staged one in Florida a few weeks ago. It is why he called for a big address to Congress. That speech shattered social media records. Three million people Tweeted about it. Facebook saw 21 million likes, posts, comments and shares about it.

President Trump has 22 million Twitter followers on his personal account. And 14 million on his POTUS account. Nancy Pelosi has 1 million. Hillary had less than half the number he had. And critics reckoned millions were fake.

Trump’s strategy is to bet on new, surging methods of reaching Americans. While he calls out old media for their atrocious biases.

Here is an indication that his enemies recognize the power of his strategy. Two former Hillary staffers have begun an “unfollow” campaign. They are pleading with Trump Twitter followers. To switch to following politicians on their side.

You can like him or hate him. You would be right to recognize he loves to craft strategies. Especially strategies that keep him on the attack.

       From Tom…as in Morgan.           

       Find Tom on Facebook. You can write to Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com.