At the end of a Donald Trump rally in Portsmouth, NH on October 15, 2016, I was surprised to see dozens of his supports angrily confronting members of the media covering the event.
How did it come to this? For months, Trump used the real-time media as his most effective campaign strategy.
Leading up to the primaries, there's no question that Donald Trump had a better command of real-time social media than any other candidate for President. And that is a big reason that he secured the GOP nomination. Trump trained mainstream media reporters to follow his @realdonaldtrump Twitter feed for quotes on the news of the day. He used Twitter more often than other candidates and he is faster to respond to what's in the news than other candidates. And the media picked up on his take on the news, giving him tons of coverage.
The media was Trump's key to securing the GOP nomination
In contrast to Trump, early front-runner Jeb Bush was playing by the rules that got his brother elected the 43rd President more than a decade ago. Other Republican candidates were doing the same. But that was a different era. Back then, massive amounts of money spent on television advertising significantly influenced voters.
Back in August 2015 when most pundits had written Trump off as not having a chance, I did a detailed analysis of Trump's use of Twitter and real-time media. Indeed, between my analysis that August and the early primary elections in the first part of 2016, Trump averaged 18 tweets per day and picked up a remarkable two million new followers in less than five months.
Trump's tweets were timely and tied to the news of the moment. According to Media Matters for America, Trump generated 22 hours and 46 minutes of free airtime from May 1, 2015 to December 15, 2015 on Fox News alone. That's more than primary candidates Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio combined. And according to mediaQuant, near the end of the primary season in March 2015, Trump's campaign had totaled $2.4 billion in earned media value.
When the media is helping you, it's great. But in the past few weeks, Trump's relationship with the reporters and editors who propelled him to victory in the primaries has soured. Now they are writing and broadcasting stories that are harming his candidacy, such as his recorded conversations on the Access Hollywood bus.
On the stump in Portsmouth on Saturday Trump had nothing but bad things to say about the press.
Trump says the media is corrupt
At 8:50 into his talk, Trump fired up his audience by painting the media as against them. "The election is being rigged by corrupt media," Trump said. Soon after, the audience broke into a chant "CNN sucks! CNN sucks! CNN sucks!" while Trump flashed a thumbs-up.
Later, 21 minuets in, Trump says, "Don't forget. I wasn't supposed to win. I was a businessman with no experience, but I was always very political. The geniuses back there," at this Trump is pointing to the press section at the back of the rally site. "Charles Krauthammer, there's a real winner, Charles Krauthammer says, 'Donald Trump has no experience and he has no chance.'"
Trump then calls members of the media "Total losers."
At this point some members of the audience have turned around to face the cameras and are booing. Some are pointing and gesturing. And at the conclusion of the rally, many supporters chose to approach the press section and shout at the reporters.