The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, has taken to slapping journalists who write unflattering stories with an epithet he sees as the epitome of low-road, New York Post-style gossip: “Page Six reporter.” Whether the New England-born spokesman realizes it or not, the expression is perhaps less an insult than a reminder of an era when now President Donald Trump mastered the New York tabloid terrain – and his own narrative – shaping his image with a combination of on-the-record bluster and off-the-record gossip.