The research is based on news coverage in the print editions of three U.S. This paper examines Trump’s first 100 days in office, not through the lens of what he said about the news media, but what they reported about him. Said Trump: “I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away from the Washington swamp spending my evening with all of you and with a much, much larger crowd and much better people.” On his 100 th day in office, he became the first president in more than three decades to skip the White House Correspondents Dinner, choosing instead to go to Pennsylvania for a rally with supporters. Trump tweeted that the “election is being rigged by the media, in a coordinated effort with the Clinton campaign.” It’s been a running battle ever since. Only after he had secured the Republican nomination did the press sharpen its scrutiny and, as his news coverage turned negative, Trump turned on the press. Trump received far more coverage, and far more positive coverage, than did his Republican rivals.

When he announced his presidential candidacy, journalists embraced him, and he returned the favor. Trump’s dislike of the press was slow in coming. During his presidency, Obama held more than a thousand such interviews. Clinton and Barack Obama relied on one-on-one interviews with reporters in an effort to get out their side of the story. Bush extended that strategy, adding video feeds to the mix. Ronald Reagan created what amounted to a White House news service, feeding stories directly to local news outlets in order to bypass the national press. Nixon worked largely behind the scenes, threatening to take away broadcasters’ licenses if they didn’t shape up. What’s different with President Trump is that he’s taken the fight to the press, openly and with relish. In a Rolling Stone interview, Clinton exploded at his treatment by the press: “I’ve fought more damn battles here than any president in 20 years with the possible exception of Reagan’s first budget and not gotten one damn bit of credit from the knee-jerk liberal press. In the first two years of his presidency, Bill Clinton persuaded Congress to enact a tax increase on upper incomes, a family leave program, NAFTA, deficit reduction, the Brady bill, a youth training program, and other initiatives, yet was mired in a slew of headlines about Travelgate, Whitewater, and other alleged wrongdoings. Virtually every president since Nixon has obsessed over what they’ve seen as unfair treatment by the press. The opening words are those of Richard Nixon. Because they’re trying to stick the knife right in our groin.”ĭonald Trump’s ongoing feud with the media is not the first time a president has felt wronged by the press. “The press is your enemy,” said the president. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio or Stitcher. Listen to Thomas Patterson discuss the report with Shorenstein Center director Nicco Mele on our Media and Politics Podcast. This research is partially funded by Rebecca Donatelli, with special thanks to the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy. Fox was the only news outlet in the study that came close to giving Trump positive coverage overall, however, there was variation in the tone of Fox’s coverage depending on the topic.Trump has received unsparing coverage for most weeks of his presidency, without a single major topic where Trump’s coverage, on balance, was more positive than negative, setting a new standard for unfavorable press coverage of a president.European reporters were more likely than American journalists to directly question Trump’s fitness for office.Republican voices accounted for 80 percent of what newsmakers said about the Trump presidency, compared to only 6 percent for Democrats and 3 percent for those involved in anti-Trump protests.He was also the featured speaker in nearly two-thirds of his coverage. President Trump dominated media coverage in the outlets and programs analyzed, with Trump being the topic of 41 percent of all news stories-three times the amount of coverage received by previous presidents.The report is based on an analysis of news reports in the print editions of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, the main newscasts of CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC, and three European news outlets (The UK’s Financial Times and BBC, and Germany’s ARD). A new report from Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy analyzes news coverage of President Trump’s first 100 days in office.

Trumps first one hundred days