From fake news to enemy of the people: An anatomy of Trump's tweets

Since announcing his candidacy in the 2016 presidential elections to the end of his second year in office, President Donald Trump has sent 1,339 tweets about the media that were critical, insinuating, condemning, or threatening. In lieu of formal appearances as president, Trump has tweeted over 5,400 times to his more than 55.8 million followers; over 11 percent of these insulted or criticized journalists and outlets, or condemned and denigrated the news media as a whole. To better monitor this negative rhetoric, CPJ's North America program created a database to track tweets in which Trump mentioned the media, individualjournalists, news outlets, or journalistic sources in a negative tone. CPJ found that the focus of the tweets has shifted dramatically. During the campaign, Trump frequently called out specific journalists by name or Twitter handle, accounting for over a third of his negative tweets about the press during that period. This trend declined in the months leading up to the election and, since taking office, his focus shifted instead to the media as a whole, accounting for 63 percent of his tweets about the press in the first two years of his presidency, compared with 23 percent as a candidate. The overall number and rate of Trump's tweeting has also decreased since he took office. However, those targeted at the press constitute a larger percentage of his total tweets during his presidency.