A full-court press

NOTWITHSTANDING THE help he got from fake news reports, Donald Trump probably owes his presidency more to the traditional kind. Only a small minority of voters absorbed made-up accounts of Hillary Clinton’s endorsement by Islamic State, lesbianism and links to a child-sex ring. Yet most were subject, indirectly or directly, to an incessant drumbeat of negative reporting by mainstream outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post and network news channels on the Democratic candidate’s wooden public speaking and the largely confected scandals she was said to be embroiled in.