Donald Trump began his campaign to be elected the president of the United States in 2016 with a speech on June 16, 2015, that included the vow “I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”
Trump’s vow — and his repeated emphasis during the campaign to bring back jobs lost in recent decades (particularly in the Midwest) was almost certainly a key factor in his triumph. It is too soon to ascertain whether Trump will fulfill his pledge, but the signs are promising in one industry.
Ironically, it’s the industry that he probably hates the most — the news industry.
Many media analysts are now calling the boom in news readership and viewership that could lead to more jobs in the news industry the ‘Trump bump.’ “Dozens of media companies” have had a subscription surge because of his presidential candidacy, his election, and his presidency, reports TheStreet, a financial news website whose chairperson is Jim Cramer, the prominent television financial analyst.
“Trump, of course, has become the greatest source of lead generation the American press has ever seen, his campaign and then election inspiring hundreds of thousands of Americans to rush to buy digital news subscriptions and memberships,” the article reports.
Interestingly, it’s Americans who dislike Trump who are fueling the boom in news readership, according to TheStreet. The article details subscription increases in several media outlets, including The New Yorker magazine, The Atlantic magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Financial Times, The Guardian, ProPublica, Slate magazine, and the Los Angeles Times.
Most objective people would probably label almost all of the above publications as liberal. In interviews with TheStreet and other publications about the Trump bump, editors acknowledge that they have decided to ramp up their anti-Trump coverage in an effort to spur liberals into buying subscriptions.
The liberal media’s strategy has worked. Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair magazine, responded to a Trump tweet criticizing the magazine by labeling his publication “The Magazine Donald Trump Doesn’t Want You to Read” on its website, and urging website visitors to “Subscribe Now!”
According to The New York Times article “By Attacking the Press, Donald Trump May Be Doing It a Favor,” the number of subscriptions per day over the next few days was the magazine’s highest ever, and 100 times higher than its previous daily average.
Other dramatic subscription hikes include:
* The New Yorker selling 250,000 subscriptions between Election Day and Jan. 31, 2017, a 230 percent increase over the period between Nov. 8, 2015 and Jan. 31, 2016. January was the magazine best month in its 92-year history.
* The Atlantic setting its all-time record in November, 2016 and then doubling that record in December, 2016.
* The New York Times selling about 500,000 subscriptions between Oct. 1, 2016 through March 31, 2017, the best six-month total in the history of newspapers.
* The Washington Post breaking its monthly record in November, 2016, and again in January, 2017, while subscription revenue doubled from a year earlier.
Historic Viewership Hikes
Traditionally, viewership of television news programs declines the year after a presidential election. That hasn’t happened so far in 2017 thanks to Trump.
The historic hikes in viewership that have occurred in 2017 came after earlier historic hikes in 2016. The three major cable TV news networks — CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC — all had their best years ever. Fox had about 2.4 million viewers per day on average, nearly double second-place CNN, according to Business Insider.
“Trump deserves all the credit for this banner year in cable news. Period,” Erik Wemple, a media columnist for The Washington Post, told Business Insider. “Any cable news executive who insists otherwise risks eternal embarrassment.”
As remarkable as 2016 was in the world of television news, 2017 could turn out to be even better. During the first five months, viewership of the “Big Three” was one-third higher than during the first five months of 2016. In the most recent monthly report, MSNBC had 93 percent more viewers in May 2017 than the year before, while CNN and Fox News had 41 and 22 percent more viewers, respectively.
It’s also clear that specific events about Trump fuel huge ratings hikes. “‘Morning Joe’ Viewership Ratings Skyrocket After Trump Tweets,” is how a Fortune magazine article summarized what happened after Trump criticized MSNBC talk show host Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. The show after the tweets had 1.66 million viewers. It averages 896,000.
The coverage of Trump during his campaign and presidency have clearly been affected by a desire for more revenues and profits. In the early stages of his campaign, reporters and broadcasters often acted like stenographers as they transcribed and recorded what he said without commentary. At this stage, the American public was more interested in Trump the celebrity than Trump the potential president, and people often paid attention to him because of his penchant for being provocative and unpredictable.
After Trump won the Republican Party’s nomination, liberal Americans were often more interested in the media putting a positive spin on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and criticizing Trump because they didn’t want him to be president. This attitude was reflected by the publications themselves. Consequently, they made very serious errors in their coverage of the election campaign.
Dean Baquet, The New York Times’ executive editor, admitted to the Columbia Journalism Review that his newspaper erred because of its pro-Clinton mindset.
Among other things, Baquet said that the newspaper buried a story written two days before the election that Trump could win because of his support among the white working class on page 16 – when it should have been on page . The Times’ prominent and constant display of a graphic that reported Clinton had an 85 percent chance of winning was a mistake.
The New York Times wrote a letter to its subscribers a few days after the election pledging to “rededicate” itself to quality journalism and implying it underestimated Trump. However, Baquet told the Columbia Journalism Review that “a lot of our readers want us to take him out.” Will this lead to more anti-Trump mistakes?
Perhaps, CBS Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves summarized journalists’ attitudes toward Trump in 2016 better than anyone else when he explained why CBS covered Trump’s campaign the way it did.
“(His campaign) may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” he said.
Regards,
Ethan Warrick
Editor
Wealth Authority
