President Trump routinely insists that he is treated unfairly by the press, while many in the news industry have openly expressed how difficult it can be to report on him in today’s chaotic media environment. Here is a timeline of the major events that have shaped this relationship.


47,891 BC: Primitive humans evolve the neocortical capacity to lie

September 4, 1966: Trump’s intense animosity toward journalists begins as a college undergraduate after failing to land a New Yorker copy desk internship


October 16, 1973: The New York Times mentions Trump for the first time in a fawning puff piece about him being sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination

April 1988: Trump roundly laughed off after teasing presidential bid

May 1, 1989: Trump briefly reaches détente with press by taking out full-page newspaper ad calling for execution of five innocent minority teenagers


November 2003: Trump roundly laughed off after teasing presidential bid

August 19, 2010: Trump leaves post as music editor at Salon

March 2011: Trump roundly laughed off after teasing presidential bid

2015-2017: Thousands of news editors across the country begin day by announcing they need more content on Trump


March 29, 2016: Trump’s then campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, is charged with simple battery for assaulting a reporter—who, to be fair, was trying to ask Trump a question

July 1, 2016: Discovers Kellyanne Conway underneath sewer grate

September 15, 2016: Trump criticized for normalizing Jimmy Fallon’s behavior during late-night show appearance


January 2017: Other politicians realize there nothing stopping them from acting this way either

February 11, 2017: CNN correspondents given exciting, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cover own sedition trial