The Print Reader-In-Chief: Inside Trumps Retro Media Diet

(Politico) DANIEL LIPPMAN 07/29/2019 05:02 AM He slams the mainstream media as dishonest liars. He calls journalists the enemy of the people." He rages at the television hosts he watches during his Executive Time." He hasnt held a traditional White House press conference for almost 10 months preferring to go around the fake news" filter he perceives as hopelessly biased and blast out 280-character proclamations on Twitter instead. Yet theres one form of media President Donald Trump consumes to a surprisingly voracious degree despite the widespread assumption that hes not much of a reader: the printed word. At a time when the newspaper industry has lost at least 2000 jobs nationwide since Trump was elected and a quarter of its total jobs since 2008 Trumps ink-stained reading habits are striking. Theyre also fundamental to understanding his presidency. In addition to his diet of major newspapers Trump relies on paper copies of articles pulled from elsewhere that are culled each day by his staff. The papers and printouts are cherished tools that allow him to monitor the coverage of his administration reward allies and rebuke critics with dashed-off personal notes. Its also a system that gives aides and would-be influencers ample opportunity to flatter manipulate and steer him and various attempts to exert firmer control over the presidents print inputs have largely failed according to nearly a dozen current and former officials interviewed for this article.