特朗普如何避开主流媒体——并赢得总统大选

【中美创新时报2024 年 11 月 12 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）与以往的总统竞选活动不同，特朗普虽然在很大程度上避开了《纽约时报》、美国广播公司和美国国家公共电台等主流媒体的采访，而是转而接受播客和友好、保守的另类媒体，但他还是取得了胜利。《波士顿环球报》记者Aidan Ryan 对此作了下述报道。

在正式赢得白宫第二任期的几个小时前，唐纳德·特朗普将他的胜利演讲台让给了终极格斗冠军赛首席执行官达娜·怀特，后者赞扬了当选总统，然后迅速转而表示感谢。

他没有选择首先感谢志愿者、竞选工作人员，甚至没有感谢为特朗普投票的 7400 多万选民。相反，他感谢了“Nelk Boys、Adin Ross、Theo Von、‘Bussin’ With The Boys’，最后但并非最不重要的是，强大而有影响力的乔·罗根”——一群播客、影响者和独立媒体人物，特朗普倾向于在选举前接触潜在选民。

与以往的总统竞选活动不同，特朗普虽然在很大程度上避开了《纽约时报》、美国广播公司和美国国家公共电台等主流媒体的采访，而是转而接受播客和友好、保守的另类媒体，但他还是取得了胜利。他的策略与以往的竞选周期相比发生了重大变化——包括他自己在 2016 年成功竞选时经常寻求主流媒体采访——这引发了人们对传统新闻媒体未来的作用和相关性的质疑。

“我们知道，对主流媒体的真正威胁是，现在存在一个成功的模式，可以避免 11 月 5 日之前没有出现过，”媒体历史学家、缅因大学新闻学教授迈克尔·索科洛说。

在竞选活动的最后几周，人们对传统媒体的作用感到忧心忡忡，《华盛顿邮报》和《洛杉矶时报》都拒绝支持任何一位候选人，这引发了进步人士的强烈抗议，一些表示已经起草了对副总统卡马拉·哈里斯的支持书的编辑委员会成员辞职。

尽管人们预测这场竞选会很激烈，但特朗普最终还是赢得了决定性的胜利，包括在拜登总统于 2020 年获胜的关键战场州，如宾夕法尼亚州、密歇根州和威斯康星州。

为了争取选民，特朗普严重依赖媒体的碎片化现实。他放弃了传统的电视采访，甚至放弃了参加哥伦比亚广播公司的“60 分钟”节目，而是依靠播客和有影响力的人与不收看传统新闻媒体的选民对话。这与观众的去向相符——少数广播网络和报纸不再设定新闻和信息的议程。

在竞选前的几个月里，特朗普登上了流媒体平台 Kick with Adin Ross，与喜剧演员 Von 坐下来聊天，后者主持播客“This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von”，并接受了罗根三个小时的采访，罗根可以说是美国最受欢迎的播客主持人。就在选举前，罗根支持特朗普。

据《华盛顿邮报》报道，特朗普在 18 岁儿子巴伦的鼓励下，于今年夏天开始采用这种播客策略。他还得到了亿万富翁埃隆·马斯克的大力支持，X 已成为特朗普的宣传工具。

特朗普并不是唯一一位倾向于非传统媒体的候选人。哈里斯还采访了播客，例如“Call Her Daddy”主持人亚历克斯·库珀，他的听众大多是年轻女性，以及前 NBA 球员马特·巴恩斯和斯蒂芬·杰克逊，他们共同主持播客“All the Smoke”，该播客面向年轻男性。但特朗普几乎只接受友好、保守的媒体和非对抗性节目的采访，而哈里斯还花时间回答有关她在 CNN、MSNBC 和“60 分钟”等主流媒体上的记录的问题。

有迹象表明，特朗普对年轻男性的关注可能奏效了。根据美联社对超过 12 万名选民的调查，52% 的 18-44 岁男性和 46% 的 18-29 岁选民投票给了特朗普。

保守派智库美国企业研究所高级研究员丹尼尔·考克斯表示，特朗普成功驾驭的碎片化媒体格局已经存在多年，但《乔·罗根体验》或《叫她爸爸》等播客的受众性别差异反映了一些新情况。

“我们第一次在网上看到这种严重隔离的性别内容，”考克斯说。“这是一个巨大的转变。”

虽然考克斯表示，特朗普是一个未来候选人可能无法效仿的独特人物，他能够通过煽动性言论吸引大量媒体关注，但 2024 年大选确实表明，政治候选人将不得不在媒体上投入更多精力，以接触不同的受众。

“你可能必须接触比以前的候选人更广泛的人群，”他说。

考克斯补充说，播客和网红通常不会帮助政客在某些地区吸引选民，而这正是强大的本地新闻机构仍然至关重要的方式之一。皮尤研究中心最近的一份报告发现，大约 74% 的美国人至少在一定程度上信任本地新闻。

“现在有机会为本地新闻创造一种以前不存在的不同模式，”《洛杉矶时报》前主编、《华盛顿邮报》前总编辑凯文·梅里达说。“我们需要更好地了解我们的社区和邻居。”

对于《纽约时报》、《华盛顿邮报》和《波士顿环球报》等主流媒体来说，特朗普在 2016 年的当选导致订阅人数增加，俗称“特朗普热潮”。但这次是否会出现另一次这样的热潮还有待观察。

考克斯认为不会。他补充说：“从我在民意调查中看到的情况来看，人们对特朗普有一种明显的疲惫感。”

梅里达说，这并不意味着传统新闻媒体不应该继续积极报道特朗普，他不确定是否会出现“特朗普热潮”。他说，重要的是要专注于从读者数据中学习报道，以保持其自身的相关性。

传统新闻机构也可能面临来自特朗普的挑战，特朗普此前曾对批评性报道作出回应，禁止一些媒体参加他的新闻发布会，威胁要吊销网络的广播执照，并起诉媒体。

虽然一些保守派评论家在特朗普获胜后迅速将传统新闻视为无关紧要的事情——《每日电讯报》评论员马特·沃尔什在推特上表示，传统新闻“已正式消亡”——但梅里达等人则表示，现在敲响丧钟还为时过早。

“我不认为这是主流媒体的终结，”他说。“但我确实认为，我们应该保持谦逊。我们应该审视我们的手艺，审视我们如何接触观众，如何讲述故事。”

题图：唐纳德·特朗普在佛罗里达州西棕榈滩的选举之夜与达娜·怀特进行了交谈。Evan Vucci/美联社

附原英文报道：

How Trump avoided the mainstream media — and won the presidency

By Aidan Ryan Globe Staff,Updated November 7, 2024 

Donald Trump spoke with Dana White on election night in West Palm Beach, Fla.Evan Vucci/Associated Press

Just hours before officially clinching a second term in the White House, Donald Trump ceded his victory speech podium to Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, who praised the president-elect before quickly pivoting to deliver thanks.

He didn’t choose to first thank volunteers, campaign workers, or even the 74 million-plus voters who cast ballots for Trump. Instead, he thanked “the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, ‘Bussin’ With The Boys,’ and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan” — a group of podcasters, influencers, and independent media personalities that Trump gravitated toward to reach potential voters ahead of the election.

In a shift from prior presidential campaigns, Trump’s victory came despite his largely eschewing interviews with mainstream news outlets such as The New York Times, ABC, and NPR, and instead embracing podcasts and friendly, conservative alternative media. His strategy marked a major change from prior cycles — including his own 2016 successful bid, in which he routinely sought mainstream media interviews — that has raised questions about the role and relevance of legacy news outlets going forward.

“The real threat to the mainstream media as we know it is that there now exists a successful model for avoiding them that didn’t before Nov. 5,” said Michael Socolow, a media historian and professor of journalism at the University of Maine.

Hand-wringing about the traditional media’s role gained steam in the campaign’s final weeks, when both The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times declined to endorse either candidate, prompting firestorms among progressives and resignations of editorial board members who said they had drafted endorsements for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Despite predictions of a tight race, Trump won decisively, including in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that President Biden won in 2020.

To court voters, Trump leaned heavily into the fragmented reality of media. He ditched traditional TV interviews, even backing out of an appearance on CBS’s “60 Minutes,“ and instead relied on podcasts and influencers to speak to voters who don’t tune in to legacy news outlets. That follows where audiences have gone — no longer do a handful of broadcast networks and newspapers set the agenda on news and information.

In the months leading up to the campaign, Trump went on the streaming platform Kick with Adin Ross, sat down with the comedian Von, who hosts the podcast “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von,” and was interviewed for three hours by Rogan, arguably the most popular podcast host in the country. Just before the election, Rogan endorsed Trump.

Appearing on such podcasts was a strategy that Trump came to over the summer after encouragement from his 18-year-old son, Barron, the Post reported. He also received significant support from Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, which has been transformed into a Trump megaphone.

Trump wasn’t the only candidate leaning into nontraditional media. Harris also spoke to podcasters such as “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper, who draws a sizable audience of largely young women, and former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, who cohost the podcast “All the Smoke,” which caters to young men. But where Trump spoke almost exclusively to friendly, conservative outlets and nonconfrontational programs, Harris also spent time answering questions about her record on mainstream outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and “60 Minutes.”

There are signs that Trump’s focus on young men might have worked. Fifty-two percent of men age 18-44 and 46 percent of all voters age 18-29 voted for Trump, according to an Associated Press survey of more than 120,000 voters.

Daniel Cox, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, said that the fragmented media landscape that Trump navigated with success has existed for years, but that the differences in gender among audiences for podcasts like “The Joe Rogan Experience” or “Call Her Daddy“ reflect something newer.

“For the first time, we’re seeing this heavily segregated gender content online,” Cox said. “That is a big shift.”

While Cox said Trump is a singular figure that future candidates may not be able to emulate, referring to his ability to attract significant media attention for his provocative statements, the 2024 election does indicate political candidates will have to do much more media to reach different audiences.

“You may have to reach out to a far greater range of folks than previous candidates,” he said.

Still, podcasts and influencers don’t typically help politicians woo voters in certain geographic places, and that is one of the ways strong local news organizations remain vital, Cox added. Roughly 74 percent of Americans at least somewhat trust local news, a recent Pew Research Center report found.

“There are opportunities to create a different model for local news now that didn’t exist before,” said Kevin Merida, the former editor of the Los Angeles Times and a former managing editor at the Post. “We need to get to know our communities and neighbors better.”

For mainstream outlets such as The New York Times, the Post, and the Globe, the election of Trump in 2016 led to an increase in subscribers, colloquially known as the “Trump bump.” But it remains to be seen whether there will be another such surge this time around.

Cox thinks not. “From what I’ve seen in the polling, there’s a palpable sense of exhaustion” with Trump, he added.

That doesn’t mean traditional news outlets shouldn’t continue covering Trump aggressively, said Merida, who wasn’t sure if there would be a “Trump bump.” He said it’s important to focus on learning from readership data on stories to preserve their own relevance.

Traditional news organizations will also likely face challenges from Trump, who has previously responded to critical coverage by barring some outlets from his press events, threatening to pull broadcast licenses from networks, and suing outlets.

While some conservative pundits were quick to render legacy news irrelevant after Trump’s victory — the Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh tweeted that legacy news “is officially dead” — others such as Merida said it’s too early to sound the death knell.

“I don’t believe this is the end of mainstream media,” he said. “But I do think it would do us well to have humility. We should examine our craft, how we’re reaching audiences, how we’re telling stories.”