page_title: Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign
section_title: Media coverage
hierarchical_section_title: Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign / Media coverage
caption_attribution_description: English: Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Fountain Hills, Arizona, before the March 22 primary.
context_page_description: The 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump was formally launched on June 16, 2015, at Trump Tower in New York City. Trump was the Republican nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election, having won the most state primaries, caucuses, and delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention. He chose Mike Pence, the sitting Governor of Indiana, as his vice presidential running mate. On November 8, 2016, Trump and Pence were elected president and vice president of the United States. Trump's populist positions in opposition to illegal immigration and various trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, earned him support especially among voters who were male, white, blue-collar, working class, and those without college degrees.
  Many of Trump's remarks were controversial and helped his campaign garner extensive coverage by the mainstream media, trending topics, and social media. Trump's campaign rallies attracted large crowds as well as public controversy.
context_section_description: Trump spent only a modest amount on advertising during the primary—$10 million through February 2016, far behind opponents such as Jeb Bush ($82 million), Marco Rubio ($55 million), and Ted Cruz ($22 million). Trump benefited from free media more than any other candidate. From the beginning of his campaign through February 2016, Trump received almost $2 billion in free media attention, twice the amount that Hillary Clinton received. Trump earned $400 million alone in the month of February. According to data from the Tyndall Report, which tracks nightly news content, through February 2016, Trump alone accounted for more than a quarter of all 2016 election coverage on the evening newscasts of NBC, CBS and ABC, more than all the Democratic campaigns combined. Observers noted Trump's ability to garner constant mainstream media coverage "almost at will".
  In response, a petition to "Stop promoting Donald Trump" accused the media of giving Trump endless airtime for the purpose of increasing viewership and ratings and quickly amassed over 200,000 signatures. The media's coverage of Trump generated some disagreement as to its effect on his campaign. John Sides of The Washington Post argued that Trump's success was because of the mass news coverage, yet a later article in The Washington Post stated that he remained successful in spite of the drop in media attention. On September 21, 2015, Politico said, "blaming the press for the Trump surge neglects the salient fact that so much of the coverage of him has been darkly negative." However, Barry Bennett—senior adviser to Trump—said in response to the high number of interviews Trump has given:
  Well the demand is pretty high so it's hard not to do them. And it's free media. And we've literally gotten hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free media. No other candidate can talk when everybody is talking about you. So there's some strategic benefit to it.
  In a January 2016 interview with CBS, Trump said of his campaign's plans to purchase advertising; "I think I'm probably wasting the money. But I'm $35 million under budget. Look, I was going to have 35 or 40 million spent by now. I haven't spent anything. I almost feel guilty ... I'm leading by, as you all say, a lot. You can take the CBS poll. You can take any poll and I'm winning by a lot. I don't think I need the ads. But I'm doing them. I almost feel guilty."
  In February 2016, in response to complaints from Trump that Fox News reporter Megyn Kelly would be unfair to him in a Republican primary debate preceding the Iowa caucuses, Fox released a sarcastic statement about Trump, saying they were "surprised he's willing to show that much fear", regarding Kelly. Trump responded by criticizing the "wise-guy press release" and withdrew from the debate, instead hosting a competing event in the state designed to raise money for wounded veterans on the day of the debate. In a November 2019 court settlement, Trump was ordered to pay a $2 million fine for misusing his Trump Foundation for political and business purposes. In the settlement, Trump acknowledged that the veterans fundraiser had actually been a campaign event and the $2.8 million in raised funds were placed under the full control of his campaign.
  Trump frequently criticized the media for writing what he alleged to be false stories about him and referred to them as being the "worst people" and he has called upon his supporters to be "the silent majority", apparently referencing the media. At a rally in Fort Worth, Texas, in February 2016, Trump stated that if elected he would "open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money". Trump specifically alleged that reporting about him by The New York Times and The Washington Post has included falsehoods. Trump says the media "put false meaning into the words I say", and says he does not mind being criticized by the media as long as they are honest about it.
  After Trump won the nomination, historians Fredrik Logevall and Kenneth Osgood noted that, "Hardly 
caption: Trump speaks at an Arizona rally in March 2016.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 5D Mark II", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2016:03:20 22:21:52", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "980", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1094", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "13426", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:03:19 12:34:17", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:03:19 12:34:17", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "67/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "37/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "255", "EXIF SubSecTime": "25", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "25", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "25", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5616", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3744", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "5616000/1459", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1872000/479", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}