At times you might think the only thing Donald Trump hates more than "bad trade deals" is free bathing suit sex videothe media that covers his campaign critically.
Earlier this week, the Republican party's presumptive nominee for president called one ABC reporter a "sleaze" and another CNN reporter as "a real beauty" during a press conference.
Trump also tweeted insults at more reporters and media outlets throughout the week -- calling Katie Couric a "third rate reporter" and slamming the news show Morning Joe.
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These outbursts, combined with hostile treatment of reporters at Trump's rallies and the candidates stated intention to crack down on libel protections if elected, have created a tense and unprecedented relationship between a major party's candidate and the press tasked with covering him fairly.
"He's just in a different universe than literally everyone else who has run for president in modern times."
"It's nothing like we've ever seen before," Sahil Kapur, national politics reporter for Bloomberg Politics, said in an interview with Mashable's Biz Please podcast, which you can listen to below or download on iTunes and Stitcher.
"His way of dealing with the media, the media's attempt to deal with a candidate this way -- I don't think we've ever seen anything like it," Kapur added. "He's just in a different universe than literally everyone else who has run for president in modern times."
The dynamic could be described as something of a love/hate relationship: Trump feigns disdain for the media but relishes his constant coverage and attention. The media has genuine concerns about the rhetoric and actions of Trump's campaign, but also knows the candidate's potential to generate ratings and traffic.
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If the hostility toward reporters and news outlets isn't complicated enough, Trump is also prone to lobbing inaccurate statements and changing his positions on an almost hourly basis, forcing the media industry -- which is itself in a state of flux -- to figure out how to adjust.
"We're all trying to stay above board in this brave new world where print is more or less dying and the internet is evolving in pretty dramatic ways," Kapur says. "I think we're seeing an attempt by the media to cover a candidate like him who is throwing so many arrows at so many people so frequently and a lot of what he says is simply not true. A lot of what he says is simply factually not true."
The latest attempt to address the truth issue came this week when CNN introduced its version of a real-time fact-check for Trump statements on screen. It's a bold effort, but CNN is still just one outlet of many.
"It's a big a challenge for us to cover," he admits.
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