In the annals of media cliche, manipulators are always “masterful”. On occasion, manipulators are even “genius”. And no one is more inherently masterful than a manipulator of the media. How could they be anything else? This is the media we’re talking about.

Face it: you have to get up pret-ty darn early to get wall-to-wall coverage from an august news-spewing body.

You can’t just give humble urchin Kanye West a ticket to ride in your great gold elevator and have everyone write and broadcast about that at the expense of probing your conflicts of interest. Come to think of it, you can’t just be that urchin stalking into the secretive Wonka news factory lobby and have everyone stop talking about your recent hospitalisation and reportedly troubled marito-business empire. No, literally the only person who could pull that stuff off is a Master Manipulator of the Media.

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It’s like the old saying goes: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me every time, you’re a fricking genius. Consider how many times you’ve read something in the media along the lines of “Kim Kardashian, a masterful manipulator of the media …” or “José Mourinho, a master manipulator of the media …”. Again, what that tells you is that the press don’t go nuts for just any old rubbish. The guys they do it for are state-of-the-art. Kim Kardashian is the Lex Luthor of greased butt-shots, Mourinho the Magneto of slagging off refereeing decisions. They are master manipulators of the media. Furthermore, if a journalist unleashes that epithet at the top of whatever they’re writing or broadcasting, then they can be totally forgiven for turning whatever follows into an ironic comment on their own professional shortcomings.

The most masterful media manipulator of them all – the current undisputed genius – is just days out from downsizing into the White House. Think of it as Megatron disguising himself as a hatchback. Love him or loathe him, you cannot dispute Donald Trump’s dastardly brilliance/genius/mastery. Or rather, you still can, but it’s expected be outlawed very shortly.

And yet, if I may speak for the Toto in all of us, it feels time to hear a little less about the Wizard of Oz, and a little more about the man behind the curtain. The brilliant Jay Rosen questioned the above version of mastery, pointing out (rather Totoishly) that in order to manipulate our press, “a simple off-the-record briefing works every time”. “What’s more likely,” he then asked, “that an American journalist will write a column about media manipulation, or try to rally colleagues to prevent it?”

This is certainly something I was wondering on Wednesday, watching Trump’s malarial press conference. One of the things that immediately struck me was the way the reporters asked questions. I am given to understand Trump last gifted the world a press conference circa 1983, and I didn’t study that one very closely, so forgive me if it’s always been this way. But the journalists seemed to be indulging – maybe unwittingly – in a sort of mirroring behaviour, frequently asking questions so Trumpishly unfocused they could only reasonably be read as a form of grandstanding.

Were they trying to stand out from the pack? It had the flavour of a scene from a wildlife documentary, where weaker animals ape the alpha as a means of preferment. Maybe an animal behaviourist could get in touch and say whether there are any creatures in the natural world other than journalists who act like this. They don’t have to be vertebrates or anything.

By the time Trump was yelping, “You are fake news!” at CNN, only for other organisations to push themselves forward instead, I could imagine the spectacle glossed in the familiar, dispassionate tones of David Attenborough. “The alpha is deploying a simple but highly effective strategy of divide and conquer with the pack. They judge cooperative hunting as a luxury they can no longer afford. The realities are cold, and brutal. At this rate, none of them will survive the winter …” Yup, not even the cute baby ones.

Hang on, where was I? Ah, yes, survival. Whatever you think of BuzzFeed’s decision to publish unverified intelligence, you’ll have noticed other news organisations tipping all over them for it, despite clearly welcoming the opportunity to point towards said unverified intelligence themselves. It has long been thus. What was striking about the press conference was that many of the same news organisations that were scrupulous in criticising and condemning BuzzFeed were effectively silent as Trump shut down CNN. They simply slid in and took CNN’s spot themselves.

If Trump’s personality caught them on the hop, my commiserations. Let’s write off Wednesday as a learning experience. But as we go on, the press pack should think more collectively and deeply about various of their number being picked off by the president, what it will mean down the line, and what action they should take to best serve their readers and viewers.

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They already know that Trump’s transition cabal includes Peter Thiel, the anti-democracy billionaire whose covert campaign to shut down Gawker was not the species win many seem to think it was. It will surely have served as an inspiration to the president-elect himself. Either reporters can watch Trump effectively banish CNN, and be glad he is currently not doing it to them, or they can trial braver strategies. How about one we’ll call the “I’m Spartacus”? If he doesn’t like the question from CNN, perhaps he’d like it from the next organisation he calls, or the next, or the next, or the next?

It’s difficult to hold out a whole lot of hope. On our own shores, the football press is a case in point. From time to time, various clubs will ban one paper or another from attending their press conferences because they don’t like a particular story.

Depressingly, the others stay and dutifully transcribe the managerial platitudes ready for transmission to the wider world. Why don’t they walk in solidarity, and force more principled interaction? I know it seems crazy, but some beliefs should be more important than who’s picked up a groin strain this week.

And so, a million times more vitally, with news. It may be an industry hardwired for commercial competition, but occasionally some kind of collective strategy is a public service imperative. If not, presidential press conferences will continue to be something that doesn’t separate us from the animals.