Some journalists—dare I say it?—are overreacting to Trump’s bile and bluster. It’s not that his outbursts are merely for show. He obviously gets steamed at direct, prodding questions that he can’t evade. But his eagerness to insult the press—it was by his choice that the press-damning press conference went on for 40-minutes—perversely signals his passion for the labors of the fourth estate. The Trump vs. the press story is like a rom-com sit-com, only it airs on the news channels!

Far from seeking war with reporters, Trump has generally been very cozy with them. In a recent conversation with Hollywood Reporter’s Michael Wolff, Trump professed his respect for media titans like Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes of Fox, Leslie Moonves of CBS, Andy Lack of NBC News, and Jeff Zucker of CNN. In the decades before he was a candidate, he famously fed New York’s tabloid reporters a steady diet of gossip and self-promotion, as former New York Post Page Six columnist Susan Mulcahy recently wrote in POLITICO. As NPR’s David Folkenflik and others have pointed out, no candidate exceeds Trump for pure media friendliness. Trump has appeared on almost every TV show that has invited him. He makes his numerous rallies and speeches open to the network cameras. He and his campaign are quick to return phone calls—even if they don’t always give the straightest answer to questions. As Folkenflik explains, Trump “has relied upon near-blanket coverage and relentless interviews in the mainstream and conservative media to propel his campaign.”