Trump does best where traditional news outlets are weak

"President Donald Trump’s attacks on the mainstream media may be rooted in statistical reality: An extensive review of subscription data and election results shows that Trump outperformed the previous Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, in counties with the lowest numbers of news subscribers, but didn't do nearly as well in areas with heavier circulation," Shawn Musgrave and Matthew Nussbaum report for Politico. "For every 10 percent of households in a county that subscribed to a news outlet, Trump’s vote share dropped by an average of 0.5 percentage points."

The data was drawn from comparing election results with subscription information from more than 1,000 mainstream news publications in more than 2,900 counties from every state except Alaska (which doesn't hold county-level elections). The circulation data was compiled by the Alliance for Audited Media, an industry group that verifies for advertisers the print and digital circulation of newspapers, mainly dailies.

"The results show a clear correlation between low subscription rates and Trump’s success in the 2016 election, both against Hillary Clinton and when compared to Romney in 2012," Musgrave and Nussbaum report. "Those links were statistically significant even when accounting for other factors that likely influenced voter choices, such as college education and employment, suggesting that the decline of local media sources by itself may have played a role in the election results."

That puts the president's increasing attacks on the news media in a new light, and bolsters concerns frequently voiced by journalists and academics about the president's frequently false claims about easily verified issues. "Politico's analysis suggests that Trump did, indeed, do worse overall in places where independent media could check his claims," Musgrave and Nussbaum report. "Voters in so-called news deserts — places with minimal newspaper subscriptions, print or online — went for him in higher-than-expected numbers. In tight races with Clinton in states like Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, the decline in local media could have made a decisive difference."

Even in places with local media, Trump preferred to deal with the conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcasting stations. "Now, as president, Trump is openly touting Sinclair, even though his own Federal Communications Commission is wrestling with whether to approve its effort to vastly expand its reach by buying Tribune Broadcasting," Musgrave and Nussbaum report. "And in praising Sinclair, as in many other areas of policy and politics, Trump is utilizing social media rather than speaking directly to reporters, a method of communication that Trump considers essential to his success."