10 years of Trump, 10 years of media attacks

It was 10 years ago Monday that Donald Trump rode down his golden escalator and announced that he was running for president. And so here we are, in 2025. In those 10 years, Trump has run for president three times with a pair of wins in 2016 and 2024, sandwiching a loss in 2020. There is no doubt that he has changed politics, the country and the world in those 10 years — with half the country saying for the better, and half saying for the worse.

But the world and our country — and the media — have definitely changed.

Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, writes, “‘The Age of Trump’ Enters Its Second Decade.”

In his piece, Baker writes, “In a sense, it does not matter that Mr. Trump has actually occupied the White House for less than half of that 10 years. He has shaped and influenced the national discourse since June 16, 2015, whether in office or not. Every issue, every dispute, every conversation on the national level in that time, it seems, has revolved around him.”

Often, that’s because he has involved himself in every issue. Baker adds, “Whether he is on the cusp of dictatorship as his ‘No Kings’ critics argue, he has certainly tried to dictate the course of society across the board, seeking to impose his will not just on Washington but on academia, culture, sports, the legal industry, the news media, Wall Street, Hollywood and private businesses. He wants to personally determine traffic congestion rules in New York and the playbill at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”

CNN’s Aaron Blake has “The 10 biggest ways Trump has changed our politics, 10 years later.”

Among Blake’s items is “The decline of truth.” Blake writes, “At this point, Trump’s falsehoods often aren’t even treated as news. And that’s because, strictly speaking, they’re not new. He spouted more than 30,000 false and misleading claims in his first term, according to The Washington Post. That averages out to nearly one every hour for four years. And it hasn’t stopped.”

Blake adds, “More significant than Trump’s willingness to spout false claims, though, is that much of the country has decided this is not a deal-breaker. Whether because they believe what Trump is saying or they have decided it’s not important (or that it’s even strategic), nearly half the country has decided it’s just not a big deal for the president to be grounded in the truth.”

The Atlantic’s Russell Berman wrote, “A Decade of Golden-Escalator Politics.” In it, he reminds people just how unlikely we would be talking about Trump at all 10 years after that escalator ride.

Berman wrote, “Hardly anyone who attended that 2015 event — myself included — thought it would take Trump remotely close to the White House. That he would become, in the estimation of this magazine, ‘the most consequential American leader of the 21st century’ was utterly unthinkable. Trump had flirted with a presidential campaign multiple times before, passing on a bid each time. Most reporters doubted that he would follow through in 2016; if he did, many presumed, he would quit before he ever had to file the financial-disclosure forms required of a candidate.”

Berman is right. No one thought Trump would ever become president, let alone have this kind of impact. The Washington Post’s Matthew Choi and Dan Merica wrote, “Pretty much no one predicted that Trump would have such an indelible impact on the country’s political culture when he came down the escalator. The Democratic National Committee took it largely as a joke, putting out a trollish statement saying Trump would add ‘some much-needed seriousness that has previously been lacking from the G.O.P. field, and we look forward to hearing more about his ideas for the nation.’ His announcement barely made the front page of our newspaper at the time.”

“But,” the Post writers continued, “fast forward 10 years, and those fault lines have amplified exponentially. This past weekend highlighted the country’s clashing reactions to Trump’s leadership. As thousands of admirers filled the streets of downtown Washington to watch his military parade, thousands of protesters poured into the streets of cities and towns across the country for the ‘No Kings’ demonstrations against Trump.”

And while Trump has left his fingerprints on virtually every aspect of American life and politics — most notably, the economy, our standing on the world stage, abortion, the Supreme Court, immigration, health care, medicine, the climate — the part I pay particular attention to is Trump and the media.

In the past 10 years, in addition to his various lawsuits and attempts to shut down public media companies, Trump has turned words such as “fake news” and “enemy of the people” into rallying cries and insults meant to undermine the free press — a staple of democracy.

Just last week, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker released data that showed Trump, in these past 10 years, has written 3,500 posts on social media that have attacked, insulted, belittled and diminished the media.

In a piece for The Daily Beast, former CNN political commentator Chris Cillizza wrote, “If you average out the nearly 3,500 social media attacks on the press from Donald Trump over the past ten years, you get that he averaged an anti-media post just about every single day of that time period. No days off.”

As Cillizza notes, aside from sleeping and breathing, is there anything you’ve done every day for 10 years?

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker found that Trump has used the words “fake news” or described particular reporting, polls or outlets as “fake” nearly 1,500 times. He has used the phrase “enemy of the people” in 70 posts.

Such attacks have had noticeable consequences.

Stephanie Sugars from the Freedom of the Press Foundation wrote, “As Trump repeated this rhetoric day after day, Americans’ faith in the news media — especially among his supporters — dropped sharply. Pew Research Center polling found that, from 2016 to 2024, Republicans’ trust in national news organizations declined from 70% to 40%.”

Clearly, Trump’s words have been effective.

Cillizza commented, “What’s worse is that Trump doesn’t believe it. He loves the media. Cares about what the media thinks of him. All of this ‘fake news’ stuff is pure schtick — and it works. It gets his base fired up. It gives them a common enemy.”

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Moran speaks

First things first. Former ABC News correspondent Terry Moran said he wasn’t drunk when he sent out a midnight tweet two weeks ago that said President Donald Trump and Trump adviser Stephen Miller were “world-class haters.” That since-deleted tweet ended up costing Moran his job when, just a few days later, ABC News didn’t renew his contract.

In an interview with The New York Times, Moran wanted to end the speculation immediately by saying, “It wasn’t a drunk tweet.”

But it was one of those what-was-he-thinking moments. After all, it was late at night on a weekend with Moran calling Miller a “man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred.”

It was out of character for Moran. And over the line for someone who is a straight news reporter, as opposed to a pundit or columnist-type.

Much of the right immediately went after Moran, accusing him — and all mainstream media — of bias. ABC News suspended and then parted ways with Moran, calling his post “a clear violation of ABC News policies” and adding, “At ABC News, we hold all of our reporters to the highest standards of objectivity, fairness and professionalism, and we remain committed to delivering straightforward, trusted journalism.”

Moran explained to the Times’ Jessica Testa and Michael M. Grynbaum exactly how it all went down, starting with that tweet. He spent the evening taking his dog for a walk, hanging out with his family and then?

Moran said, “I wrote it, and I said, ‘That’s true.’”

Moran said there wasn’t one thing that prompted the tweet, telling the Times, “I don’t think you should ever regret telling the truth. And I don’t.”

The Times wrote, “Mr. Moran declined to address whether his post had made it more difficult for his former ABC News colleagues to carry out their journalistic work. ‘If they want to reach out, I’m happy to talk about that, but I’m not going to speak in the abstract,’ he said. For his part, Mr. Moran seemed surprised by the post’s reach. ‘I thought it would hit a nerve, maybe,’ he said. He did not grasp the gravity of the incident until ABC News informed him last Sunday that he had been suspended.”

Moran spoke with the Times on Sunday night. On Monday, he spoke with The xxxxxx’s Tim Miller and admitted it was a hot take, telling Miller, “It’s way hot. And I wish I had a better story to tell. I just, it was something that was in my heart and mind. And I would say I used very strong language deliberately because he, I felt, and it wasn’t an …You see him all the time doing the same, spitting venom and lies into our debate, degrading our public discourse, debasing it and using the power of the White House and what he’s been given.”

Check out the Times story and Miller’s podcast for more of Moran’s thoughts.

Moran has since joined Substack. The Times wrote, “Mr. Moran’s brief dispatches are, so far, free to read, and since Tuesday, his subscriber count has reached over 90,000. That includes thousands who have purchased subscriptions for $5 per month or $50 per year in support. While he is still formulating an editorial plan — he is interested, for example, in revisiting Springfield, Ohio, where he previously reported on Mr. Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations about Haitian immigrants eating household pets — he is also ‘generally trying to have fun,’ he said.”

It’s splitsville for Detroit’s two newspapers

For this item, I turn it over to my colleague, Rick Edmonds, Poynter’s media business analyst.

The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press announced Monday that they will end a Joint Operating Agreement at the end of the year. The 36-year-old arrangement has allowed the two to pool ad sales and other business functions while maintaining separate newsrooms.

JOAs were authorized by the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 to help save financially weaker newspapers in two-newspaper cities from closing. Not counting a limited partnering in Las Vegas, Detroit is the last of the JOAs, which once numbered 28 — including in other big cities like Denver, San Francisco, Seattle and Miami.

Neither side offered detailed information on what, if anything, will change in 2026. The two produce print editions daily (though home delivery is less frequent) and maintain separate websites. Parent organizations — MediaNews Group for the News and Gannett for the Free Press — both have other outlets in the Detroit metro.

Detroit was an exception among JOAs. “The … partnership between The Detroit News and Free Press did exactly what it was intended to do for more than three decades," a spokesman for MediaNews Group wrote in an email. “It preserved two distinct and historic voices in American journalism through a time of incredible transformation and upheaval.”

A much more common scenario was that the weaker of the papers in a city closed anyhow — as advertisers, especially, and readers gravitated toward the stronger one.

Detroit’s JOA came together in a particularly colorful fashion at the end of the 1980s. The Free Press and News were conducting a full-out newspaper war with rock-bottom subscription prices to drive up circulation numbers and very low ad rates. Advertisers and their allies feared the higher rates that would be coming with the JOA and cried monopoly. Maneuvering on the terms of merging business functions and Justice Department approval of an antitrust exemption dragged on over several years and reached the Supreme Court. A Wall Street Journal reporter wrote a full book about the case.

The economics of the newspaper business began a hard slide at the start of the 2000s. The joint agency and its two papers did not reap the windfall profits critics had feared.

If there is a takeaway for the current state of the industry, it is a split one. As federal government help for news outlets continues to be debated year-to-year, JOAs showed an instance when both sides put aside their qualms and acted. In execution, though, the law of unintended consequences kicked in, and Congress failed in the end to produce the result it intended.

Must read

In the past few months since Donald Trump became president again, you’ve probably seen a few stories on cable news or some national outlet with the same general theme: This man or that woman voted for Trump, they then lost their job or had a family member deported or are struggling to make ends meet because of some policy instituted by Trump.

Then you see this person saying on camera, “This is not what I was voting for.” And that’s followed by a zillion comments that say something like, “This is exactly what you voted for.”

Such stories seem to be everywhere.

I set that up to say I really liked this analysis from Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple: “Headline of the year: ‘He voted for Trump. Then [INSERT CATASTROPHE]’”

Wemple put it nicely by calling such stories a “buffet,” as he then goes on to list two dozen such stories essentially off the top of his head.

This is me talking here, and not Wemple. These stories are fascinating to delve into. On one hand, there is an audience for such stories, particularly those who are anti-Trump and get to wag their fingers and shake their heads at those who did vote for Trump.

But they do serve a real purpose, too. As Wemple writes, “The reality roaring from all these portraits is that Trump policies are in-your-face policies, by design: They mess with people, they upend lives, they are meant to be noticed.”

However, there’s a big difference between those who disapprove of some of the things Trump has done and those who regret voting for him. As Wemple notes, “A UMass poll from early April found that a mere 2 percent of Trump voters regretted their vote in the 2024 presidential election and would vote differently if they could.”

This is just a taste of what Wemple wrote. There is much more context and analysis, so I encourage you to read it.

Quick observation

The work being done the past couple of weeks by The New York Times covering myriad stories has been superb. Its reporting — from the unrest in the Middle East to the protests in Los Angeles to the shootings of politicians in Minnesota — has gone way beyond good journalism. It has been important and noteworthy. And outstanding.

Also, the work by The Minnesota Star Tribune and The Washington Post regarding the Minnesota shootings has been excellent, especially the stories that have dug deep into the suspected gunman’s past and recent history to help explain his motives.

Media tidbits

• Iran's state TV was in the middle of a broadcast when its studio and main headquarters were hit by some sort of shelling, presumably from the Israeli military. Here’s the stunning video.
• The Washington Post’s Scott Nover with “Voice of America brings back 75 staffers amid Iran-Israel conflict.”
• Poynter’s Jennifer Orsi with “Poynter creates Roy Peter Clark Chair for Writing and Editing in honor of writing coach.”
• ABC News announced several promotions Monday. Jennifer Metz has been named executive producer of special events and news specials planning, and will continue her role as senior producer at "World News Tonight." John Santucci will be senior executive producer and managing editor, investigative unit and strategic initiatives. Katherine Faulders has been named the Washington, D.C., bureau managing editor, a newly created position. And Ben Siegel was promoted to deputy political director and coordinating producer. Deadline’s Ted Johnson has more details.
• Awful Announcing’s Sam Neumann with “ESPN’s talking heads have made the NBA Finals about themselves.”
• And, to go along with the piece above, here’s another from Awful Announcing’s Matt Yoder: “5 easy ways to improve NBA Finals coverage.”

Hot type

• CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck report on Jeanine Pirro, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and former Fox News host, in “Pirro endorsed threat to criminally investigate January 6 prosecutors in office she now runs.”

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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].

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