I thank my family for their unreserved and continual support of my writing. It is with gratitude that I mention Virginia Tech, which paid my salary and also funded library services such as interlibrary loan, Ebscohost, and other databases all absolutely necessary to the completion of this project. The value Virginia Tech places on research allows projects such as this book to be undertaken and...

When I began writing this book, I was interested in exploring the contentious relationship between the mainstream news media and President Trump; by the time I had completed the project, I was forced to conclude that political reporting by the mainstream news media today had devolved, certainly with regard to President Trump, into a partisan endeavor. I realize that such a conclusion is itself not...

President Donald J. Trump and the mainstream American news media share a contentious relationship. Although generally receiving positive press prior to his announcement in 2015 that he would run for president, following that moment Trump increasingly received negative press culminating with highs of up to 93 percent negative coverage by the end of 2017. The negative coverage remains at those levels even as this book is being written.1~1. This figure can change based upon how examples are covered. For instance, some studies count only negative and positive statements, whereas others include neutral comments as well. For the later, estimates are around 65 percent negative coverage, higher still than any other president. For examples of these studies, see: Thomas E. Patterson, “News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days,” Shorenstein Center, May 18, 2017,...

On December 18, 2017, President Trump delivered a formal speech1~1. Donald J. Trump, “Remarks by President Trump on the Administration’s National Security Strategy,” White House, December 18, 2017,...

On December 18, 2017, President Trump delivered a formal speech1~1. Donald J. Trump, “Remarks by President Trump...

The State of the Union message to Congress is a Constitutionally prescribed action for American presidents to perform; he must, “from time to time give to the Congress information on the state of the Union and recommend...

Anyone who even marginally follows politics knows that immigration has been a contentious issue throughout both Trump’s candidacy and presidency. It began in earnest with his initial campaign announcement on June 16, 2015: “They’re [Mexico] sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with [them]. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists . . .” and most in the mainstream news media (MSM) stopped listening and starting reporting there. The rest of that ignored paragraph, like parts of the speech before, went like this: “and some, I assume are good people, but I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people. It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably . . . from the Middle...

That President Trump believes the mainstream news media tries to harm him is no secret. He makes his views well known through repeated public statements on the issue, “tweeting,” for instance, “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”1~1. “Inside Trump’s Nixonian Strategy to Make the Media the Enemy,” MSNBC, February 17, 2017. http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/inside-Trump-s-nixonian-strategy-to-make-the-media-the-enemy-880058435528. All presidents have privately complained, with research data showing Republican presidents have more to complain about than their Democrat peers, yet Trump is the first to single out the press for such public and severe...

Jim A. Kuypers (Ph.D. Louisiana State University) is professor of communication at Virginia Tech. He is the author, editor, or co-author of 15 books, including Purpose, Practice, and Pedagogy in Rhetorical Criticism (winner of the Everett Lee Hunt Award for Outstanding Scholarship) and Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States (a Choice...