I had specific suggestions for Trump on how to run his press conferences. Obviously, he did not take my suggestion seriously. I doubt that he ever saw this.
In a recent tweet, he identified the media as the enemy of the American people. That threw down the gauntlet.
The media are surely enemies of Trump. He can never get them to be anything except completely opposed to him and his presidency. They have shown that there is no trace of neutrality in the media. Those of us who knew that back in the 1950’s can point to this as confirmation. Trump now has received the memo.
Why should Trump ever hold another press conference? Why should he have a press secretary? Why should he give the media the time of day?
The media needs news. Presidents have provided low-cost, easy-access news ever since Teddy Roosevelt began the tradition in 1901. It has always favored the Left.
In the past, the Presidents have tried to put their spin on particular stories. They have done this by letting reporters have access to them. But there will be no positive spin for Trump or his policies. The media are 100% on attack mode. So, he can get no positive spin through them.
Why should he seek to get any spin at all? He doesn’t need the media. The media are opposed to him, and he can never win them back. Why should he show up at a press conference? What benefit is this going to give him?
What good is a press secretary? Why should a President allow some salaried employee to speak on behalf of the presidency? The President should speak for the President. Nobody else should.
If Trump wants to cut the media people off at the knees, he should let them post their questions in writing on the White House website. He can assign someone on his staff to send each question to a committee. The committee will put together each answer. He should have half a dozen people writing his responses. His appointees seem divided, so let them spin the material through a committee. He then signs the document, or else he can tell the spinmeisters to rewrite it. Or maybe he will write it himself. He has it posted on the White House website. He has somebody convert the White House link to a Bitly.com short link. Then he tweets his response with this bit.ly link to his readers.
If the media want to do something with what he writes, fine. That is suitable for newspapers. But it is not suitable for the television networks. They need his talking head. Why should he provide anything of benefit to the television networks?
Here is an amazing fact about the television networks. The combined viewing audience of the three networks is approximately the same as the number of readers that Trump has on his Twitter account. The networks combined have 25 million people. Trump has 25 million. But here is the crucial difference: Trump’s Twitter account is growing rapidly. In mid-January, it was 20 million people. Here is the grim plight of network news:
But viewership is trending down vs. 2016, when the presidential primaries filled the news cycle. Nightly News was down -4 percent in viewers and down -8 percent in the demo; World News Tonight was down -1 percent in viewers and down -9 percent in the demo; the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley was down -5 percent in viewers and down -16 percent in the demo.
(For the rest of my article, click the link.)
