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CJR
EDITOR’S NOTE
Our Damned Trump Fixation AUTHOR
Kyle Pope
F
OR THE PAST FIVE YEARS, MEMBERS OF
the media have blamed Donald Trump for hijacking the narrative of American politics. His outsize threat to democracy drove journalists’ obsession; his personal dysfunction propelled an outrage machine. According to data from mediaQuant, a media tracking firm, Trump received the equivalent of $5.6 billion in “free media” during the 2016 presidential campaign—more than Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz combined. The Internet Archive logged every mention of every candidate for president on cable TV news in the seven months leading up to that election; Trump was mentioned 1,172,235 times, Clinton 623,325. The numbers were even starker heading into the 2020 race. And throughout his tenure in the Oval Office, Trump received breathless, around-the-clock coverage. Last year, after the votes were counted (with scarcely a hiccup), political reporters looked ahead to the end of the Trump administration and a promised return of decency to the White House. The beginning of 2021 marked a chance for a reset and even, perhaps, redemption. Trump, the
