Donald Trump and the U.S. news media have an incestuous but symbiotic love-hate relationship. Trump rails against the media and the media rails against Trump, while both sides profit, says JP Sottile.
By JP Sottile
Les Moonves cannot lose … and he knows it. The all-too-well compensated CEO of CBS said as much back in late February of 2016. The Bataan Death March of presidential campaigns had finally kicked into high gear and a month-long barrage of primaries, caucuses and televised debates portended just the sort of never-ending story-line that makes a media mogul’s dreams come true.
CBS Chief Executive Officer Les Moonves.
The man at the center of that long, pitched battle for the hearts and mindlessness of the American people was none other than future Reality-Star-in-Chief and all-around good for business-man President Donald J. Trump. His starring role in the daily melodrama also known as “The race for the White House” had Les leaping over the moon with financial excitement.
Moonves was so effusive that, in a fit of gleeful honesty, the titular head of America’s number one network told the denizens of a Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco that Trump’s candidacy “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”
At the time, Moonves was just pondering all the advertising dollars that would inevitably pile up on the way to a profitable political train-wreck. And Les was right. Train-wrecks may make for bad politics and even worse policy, but boy-oh-boy … do they ever make for great television!
In fact, televising train-wrecks, car crashes or any kind of contentious conflict is a sure-fire way to goad world-weary audiences into rubbernecking. In this age of low-overhead/high-drama reality programming, it’s also the cheapest and easiest way to pile up cash on a corporate media balance sheet.
And no doubt, Moonves could see early on that Trump would pile it higher and deeper than anyone who’d come before him. As the Hollywood Reporter detailed, Les wanted a lot more. He hoped the “circus” full of “bomb throwing” would continue all the way through the campaign. And why not?
In…