There’s a difference between reporting on the candidate and giving him free air time by broadcasting his rallies and speeches live. Most of the 24 hour networks (CNN especially) ran out of significant things to report on Trump relatively quickly, but they knew Trump stories (negative or positive) were huge for ratings, so they would cover everything he said. It’s estimated he got $2 Billion worth of free airtime this way. For every important story you mentioned, there’s days worth of mindless coverage the media companies churned out for ratings, and it absolutely helped Trump get elected.
There’s a difference between reporting on the candidate and giving him free air time by broadcasting his rallies and speeches live. Most of the 24 hour networks (CNN especially) ran out of significant things to report on Trump relatively quickly, but they knew Trump stories (negative or positive) were huge for ratings, so they would cover everything he said. It’s estimated he got $2 Billion worth of free airtime this way. For every important story you mentioned, there’s days worth of mindless coverage the media companies churned out for ratings, and it absolutely helped Trump get elected.