Running one of the biggest and most important newspapers in America and New York made it impossible to avoid Donald J Trump.

His sex life, his money, his businesses – whether they succeeded or failed – his narcissistic branding of city landmarks and his investment in football teams and ice skating rinks made him constant fodder for gossip columnists, investigative teams and sports writers.

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Whether planting complimentary stories or raging about unfavorable coverage, Trump ensured New York could not ignore him. Newspapers, magazines and TV stations were there to be used to enhance the Trump name.

He had no shame in using the media and we had no qualms about capitalizing on his headline-generating power. For decades the competition centered on which tabloid could out-Trump the other. In a city where business leaders are hailed as celebrities, Trump became the undisputed master manipulator – the man who understood that the only thing worse than being written about was not being written about.

Stories about him could be lurid. “Best sex I ever had” proclaimed Marla Maples, Trump’s second wife, on the front page of the New York Post in 1990 – a headline and story engineered by Trump, furious that his first wife was engendering sympathy in rival gossip columns.

Or stories could be potentially damaging, exposing Trump’s dubious business practices. The Daily News’ relentless coverage of lawsuits against the so-called Trump University filled acres of newsprint and earned me and other executives raging phone calls from the man himself.

But there was no denying that his five-letter surname in a headline could sell newspapers. In their book Scandal: A Manual, legendary Daily News gossip columnists George Rush and Joanna Molloy recount how the maids and taxi drivers they met across the city all admitted to a fascination with stories about Trump.

Having masterminded coverage of him for more than a decade, I’m not laughing any more

For Trump, facts were malleable. The only thing that mattered was column inches. We used Trump and he used us. It was a shameless, but, it seemed, harmless, relationship.

All the time, however, Trump was learning the media world – developing a cunning understanding of how a quote or sound bite can be picked up across America, rebroadcast on TV and radio and make its way around the world; understanding how fame and a complete lack of self-censorship were a powerful combination.

In those days, much of the backwards and forwards was fun. A ranting phone call from Trump Tower was viewed as a badge of honor, not something to fear; Trump’s anger was something to laugh about as soon as the phone went down.

Having masterminded coverage of him for more than a decade, I’m not laughing any more. The very things that brought him headlines are now the behavior that is costing America in ways unimaginable a few months ago.

The president’s nightly, often rambling, performances in front of the White House and world’s press have developed a sad, deep, morbid fascination. It is unconscionable that even in the depth of one of the world’s most deadly crises, Trump displays the same unfiltered – and frequently uneducated – outbursts that typified his relationship with his hometown press in the 1980s and 1990s.

Instead of being the authoritative, inspiring voice that the nation so desperately needs in its darkest hour, Trump shows much of the same bullying, self-satisfied characteristics he learned in his dealings with the media in New York. In fact, Trump was more comfortable and coherent discussing gossip items as he is trying to inspire a frightened country.

It’s frightening enough that, with few exceptions, he surrounds himself with fawning acolytes who massage his ego with an obsequiousness that would bring shame in North Korea. It’s shocking to witness that the vocabulary of the supposedly most powerful man in the world extends only as far as “incredible,” “great” and “amazing”, mostly in reference to himself. And it’s disgraceful to witness him publicly berate journalists and governors who he feels don’t treat him with due deference, as opposed to the respect with which his predecessors were treated. Alone those things make his press briefings excruciatingly embarrassing.

What is more unforgivable is watching a president playing loose and fast with facts; a man who lives in an echo chamber of soundbites and quips – whether appropriate or not – shamefully adding to confusion and fear with every mixed message he utters.

At a time when the country craves someone of balance and intellect, someone to reassure and calm, someone who can admit mistakes and rectify them, someone who can lead, we’re sadly left with a man who craves attention and affirmation at any cost.

As America watches its leader stammer, misspeak and ad lib his way through the coronavirus crisis, it’s shocking to realize that Trump hasn’t changed at all. He’s that same person who would say anything for a headline in the tabloids.

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And it’s heartbreaking to look back and realize how we feted and indulged him, never considering that with each headline, we were feeding the monster of his ego and enhancing his public profile – a profile that allowed him to eventually take control of the country.

When Trump teased journalists with hints of dalliances and bragged of business dealings all those years ago, the price of being beaten was newspaper bragging rights in the morning. Now the price of his uncontrollable narcissism is far more serious, and it’s being paid in American lives.