Effective use of Twitter requires an economy of style and expression comparable to a great bumper sticker. Phyllis Schlafly, a master of political communication herself, emphasized the value of honing her message to an effective sound bite, presenting “more facts in fewer words” than other conservatives.
A good example of Trump’s mastery of the media happened in November when a student at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts burned the American flag to protest the election results. The liberal college president responded by removing our flag from its place of honor on campus. More than 1,000 veterans gathered to protest this cowardly response, but the incident drew little national attention until Trump unloaded a tweet: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!”
The media jumped on Trump with a fierce intensity, keeping the story alive for days, until they realized Trump was being helped, not hurt by their criticism.
Instead of taking bait from the media, Trump lobs Twitter bombs like this one, a few weeks ago: “Just watched @NBCNightlyNews - So biased, inaccurate and bad, point after point. Just can’t get much worse, although @CNN is right up there!” Trump doesn’t spare the late-night shows, either: “Just tried watching Saturday Night Live - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can’t get any worse. Sad.”
When the media feel compelled to report Trump’s tweets, repeating his own unfiltered words, it means he and not they control the daily news cycle. When they have to interrupt their own agenda to report how politicians and pundits respond to what Trump just said, media-created stories get lost in the shuffle.
Without press conferences, liberals have difficulty setting the agenda for a Republican president. The first President Bush held three times as many press conferences in four years as his predecessor Reagan did in eight, and the outcome was a disastrous defeat in 1992. Americans do not want a president whose agenda is set by the press corps in Washington, D.C.
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