How do you know when your meeting with Donald Trump has been canceled? According to Reuters, it’s when you check your Twitter feed. The New York Times had scheduled a series of meetings with the president-elect following his meeting the day before with major broadcasters and other media outlets, but Trump canceled them after a dispute over the arrangements and preconditions. The announcement caught the Times off-guard:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/801021596228091905

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/801025256487940096

President-elect Donald Trump abruptly canceled a meeting scheduled for Tuesday with The New York Times newspaper that he has frequently criticized, complaining in morning Twitter posts about inaccurate coverage and a “nasty tone.”

The move came a day after the Republican real estate magnate met with television anchors and news industry executives and reporters in New York in a session The Washington Post described as a contentious but generally respectful. …

A spokeswoman for the Times said the newspaper was not aware the meeting was canceled until Trump’s tweet, which came at about 6:30 a.m. EST (1130 GMT). Trump’s team tried to change the conditions of the meeting on Monday, asking that it be off the record, but the newspaper refused, said spokeswoman Eileen Murphy.

“In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off the record session and a larger on the record session with reporters and columnists,” she said in a statement.

Not long after that, Reuters updated the story with another change:

UPDATE: Trump will meet today with The New York Times – spokeswoman. https://t.co/dVX8lOpao4 pic.twitter.com/dJRUQWy3tj

— Reuters Politics (@ReutersPolitics) November 22, 2016

CNN’s Brian Stelter confirms with Hope Hicks that Trump’s on his way to the Times’ offices. No word yet on the conditions of the meeting … and we’ll see if it actually comes off. There’s lots of traffic in Manhattan, and lots of opportunities to change minds. Stay tuned!

After yesterday, one could understand the reluctance to do “off the record” with Trump. No sooner did the meeting with media outlets conclude than reports began emerging that Trump had berated the media executives, turning it into “a f***ing firing squad,” as one source colorfully put it. Kellyanne Conway and subsequent on-background reports softened the picture up considerably later in the day, but the picture it painted was of the alpha male setting everyone in their place — and it seems more likely than not that this was precisely the effect Team Trump wanted. They know that their voters have seethed over media bias and snobbery; Trump is acting in persona suffragium by slapping media outlets, and the suffragium are living that experience vicariously.

Canceling the meeting (at least for a little while) with the Times creates the same effect, of course, and pleases the same people, but Trump’s not the only party playing for position here either. The Times’ refusal to play along with an “off the record” conversation won it some kudos from other members of the media yesterday, perhaps especially so in the aftermath of yesterday’s meeting with other media outlets. The Gray Lady wants to stake out its “speaking truth to power” claim here, which is why they changed their minds and went “back to the original plan” of having a larger on-the-record session. Murphy’s description of that sounds like a take-it-or-leave-it proposition to Trump, who had no problem at all leaving it, and making sure everyone knew it. In the end, someone couldn’t “leave it,” and don’t be too surprised to hear mutually exclusive explanations on who that someone was.

In that sense, this is a win-win; both sides get to strut, and very little is lost by either. Trump’s been in New York for decades, so it’s not as if the Times needs to get to know him. Trump has plenty of other ways to get his message out, too. In fact, don’t be surprised if Trump takes a page from Barack Obama and starts focusing on local TV stations for broadcast face time. The questions are less pointed and a president can manipulate them much easier, and thanks to the Internet, the interviews go just as viral. Trump and his team see their mission in part to break the national media’s narrative power, and the only way to do that is to find an alternate means for narrative-building that they cannot influence.

One final thought: Maybe this is a clever way of distracting the suffragium from this?