A Journalist Explains How Donald Trump Uses Twitter To Manipulate The Media

Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson: Trump Masterfully Uses His Twitter Feed To Drive Cable News

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

In a tweetstorm on March 1, Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson explained how Donald Trump uses his Twitter feed to masterfully push narratives and drive the news:

1. let's consider @realDonaldTrump -- i mean the candidate and the twitter feed

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

2. He's got now 6.5 million followers. That's about the same audience as CBS's nightly news

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

3. Political journalists live on Twitter. (Guilty.) We lurk here, joke here. It's where conventional wisdom percolates and then congeals

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

4. Trump can mainline his latest hot take into the mainstream media, basically any time of night or day. At absolutely zero cost.

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

5. It's like he runs his own mini Drudge Report.

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

6. Who knows how much he's actually writing and how much it's a staffer channeling The Donald. But the communication reads 'authentic'

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

7. Which means that Trump is also his own rapid response team.

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

8. The advantage of an unmediated Donald “saying” something printable on Twitter, vs. a campaign that relies on press statements, or...

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

9. ...spokespeople, or tweets from an otherwise bland focus grouped twitter feed that are signed by the candidate's initials -- it's yuuge.

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

10. And the way Trump uses Twitter feed to drive/amplify/tweak/walk-back/push-further-over-the-line the free Cable TV media - it's masterful

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

11. It seems almost obvious to the journalists who 'slide into each other's DMs like...' and 'deal with it' on a daily basis

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

12. But @realDonaldTrump is in the sausage factory with the political media grinding meat and adding spice. We've never seen this before.

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

13. Twitter is a fucking dangerous medium. Most campaign professionals don't want candidate mouthing off here. It'd be malpractice.

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

14. But that leaves the field wide open to Trump to dominate -- hell own -- one of the most powerful communication tools of our time.

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

15. Candidates will have to master authentic communication on social media or they're going to clear the field for guy who doesn't give AF

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

16. I mean, this is what ted cruz does on twitter: https://t.co/4allcirpY4

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

17. And Marco Rubio.... man. https://t.co/qT0NKSKTND

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

20. That's a wrap. Here's the whole thing, ICYMI: “How Trump Rules Twitter” "https://t.co/O8j15vpQFz"

-- Tim Dickinson (@7im) March 1, 2016

It has been previously reported that journalists are the largest group of verified users on Twitter, and there are regularly published lists of the most influential Twitter political journalists.