My attention was caught this slow morning by New York Times’ columnist Nicholas Kristof’s effort on his “worst columns” of 2017.
The topic turned out to be his columns that drew the smallest readership. Bottom line, said Kristof:
I’m not allowed to give raw numbers, which are proprietary, but I can say that on average my columns about President Trump had readership more than twice that of my columns about foreign topics. The news industry, especially television networks, understands that anything about Trump draws an audience, while pieces about overseas crises involve an unfortunate trifecta: They are expensive to cover, sometimes dangerous to report, and often do poorly with audiences. I’m grateful to my editors for letting me spend their money on these global stories, and to my readers for sticking with me as I cover them.
No kidding. Trump sells.
My own experience is supportive. Generally speaking, I have a higher number of views on my daily video news/comment roundups on Facebook and YouTube when the lead item is about Donald Trump. They also draw many more comments. An interesting facet of that: The Trump commentary brings out the Fake News crowd with vituperation. What’s clear from many of the opinions is that they are formed — not by watching what I actually said — but by the incomplete text summaries of video content. All the MAGA crowd needs to know is that I might be criticizing their man. Fake News by an idiot it must be. Facts? Who needs them?
I look forward to wearing the Resist T-shirt I got as a Christmas present last night. And I’m hopeful that my one-item Christmas gift wish list is fulfilled — a football coach-quality metal whistle to blow into the phone at my periodic profane anonymous calls from cowardly Trumpistas.