“Florida Man Makes Announcement”. It is with these words that the American tabloid New York Post announced, at the bottom of its front page of November 16, the return of Donald Trump to the next American elections.
To find out more about the news, you have to leaf through to page 26 of the daily, where a brief satirical note tells us that “just 720 days before the next election, a Florida retiree made the surprise announcement on Tuesday evening that he was a candidate for the presidency”. The former president of the United States is also described as a “passionate golfer” before the newspaper specifies his name: Donald J. Trump.
Further, the Post says Trump’s announcement was made at Mar-a-Lago, ‘his resort and library of classified documents’, humorous reference to discovery of classified documents top secret in the billionaire’s villa and recovered by the FBI last August.
The media empire owned by Rupert Murdoch — including the New York PostFox News and the wall street journal — supported Donald Trump before and during his presidential term. But the tide appears to have turned since the midterm elections as the Republican wave failed to materialize. According to several media, including the GuardianRupert Murdoch would have warned Donald Trump that his media industry would not support his return to the White House.
“Murdoch will play hard by 2024…”, comments on Twitter the specialist in American politics and researcher at Cerium, Pierre Martin, in reference to the brief published in the Post.
Hidden on page 26 of the New York Post is the scathing report on Trump’s presidential announcement. Murdoch to play hardball by 2024… “…a Florida retiree has made a surprise announcement…” pic.twitter.com/PAChdc9omY
— Pierre Martin (@pmartin_UdeM) November 16, 2022
The front page reacted on social networks. A Donald Trump parody Twitter account had fun comparing the cover of the Post of 2022 with that of 1990. At the time, the real estate mogul, in the midst of a divorce from Ivana, had ordered the tabloid to appear on the front page when his ex-wife in the making had just made the front page of the New York Daily Newsreported in 2018 a former journalist from the Post in the HollywoodReporter.
A media flop
Beyond the disagreement between Murdoch and Trump, the latter’s candidacy for the presidency of the United States in 2024 has aroused little enthusiasm with the American press – the announcement of his return being sometimes absent from the headlines newspapers.
Trump’s candidacy is a complete flop in the US media. His “very big ad” is almost absent from the front pages this morning. Even the conservative Murdoch Group tabloid relegates her to page 26 with the contemptuous headline “Florida Man Makes Announcement” pic.twitter.com/LzELxGSIrU
—David Thomson (@_DavidThomson) November 16, 2022