How Trump Took Over the Media By Fighting It

No matter who claims the presidency on November 8, the 2016 election was a story about one human being's domination of the media.

Not since 9/11 has a single topic so colonized all of the media territories—print, television, and the Web—as thoroughly as Donald J. Trump did. Exactly how did he do that? It wasn't through brute force: Trump ignored all the orthodoxies, eschewing the traditional campaign-building, almost ignoring the field offices and a "ground game." By April, his campaign had only 94 payrolled staffers compared with Hillary Clinton's 795. No focus groups, no pollsters, practically no outside speech writing, and little in the way of TV ads. He practiced a political version of lean business management. Trump's secret was almost exactly the opposite of what even the best-paid consultant would advise. He has run a media campaign directly against the media, helping himself to the copious media attention available to a TV star while disparaging journalists at every podium and venue. Trump has taken press-baiting further than anyone else in public life would have imagined possible. The Trump campaign playbook, written by him over the past 15 months, is just begging for somebody to pick it up and create shiny things for the press to chase in 2020.