Trump, media at loggerheads

NEW YORK: Donald Trump has been at frequent loggerheads with CNN since taking office, but their feud has become increasingly bitter as the channel’s acerbic White House coverage fuels a boom in viewers.

From reportedly raging that CNN was on the first lady’s television set, to refusing to take questions from the network, to the White House barring one of its reporters from a press event: the Trump-CNN relationship is toxic.

“Donald Trump is doing what conservative politicians have been doing for a long time but which he is taking to a new level — to use the press as a punching bag, and this plays very well with the conservative base,” said Robert Jensen, who is retiring this fall as journalism professor at the University of Texas.

CNN’s stated commitment to uncovering the truth, its household-name status and robust coverage of crises in the administration, broadcasting damaging headlines around the clock, have been a huge thorn in the president’s side.

Fact-based reporting aside, eyebrows have been raised over the subjective nature of some of the commentary from its anchors, celebrities in their own right with a powerful following and multi-million-dollar contracts.

Earlier this month, Anderson Cooper called Trump’s press conference with Vladimir Putin “perhaps one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president.” In January, his colleague Don Lemon called Trump a “racist.”

“I think such comments by news people — as distinguished from commentators — are a mistake,” says Paul Janensch, a former newspaper editor who taught journalism at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

“If I were running CNN, I would tell the news professionals to stick to the facts and avoid making disparaging comments about Trump,” he told AFP.The network has recently promoted to prime-time Chris Cuomo, brother of Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the anchor who this week broadcast a taped conversation involving Trump and his former personal lawyer.

“There is that sense that CNN could be being watched by people who may be more undecided, still open to having their opinions and ideas shaped by the reporting,” says Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture.

“It’s still kind of doing the old- fashioned notion of reporter with some kind of objectivity... and I think that drives the president absolutely crazy,” added Thompson, from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

The Republican leader has long had a contentious relationship with the media, branding mainstream outlets an “enemy of the American People” and dismissing unfavorable coverage as “Fake News”.But while Trump has railed against The New York Times, he has continued to speak to its reporters. He has not granted CNN an interview since he took office.