Yes, Trump brilliantly using the media as his free megaphone!
For me, this was the decisive factor in choosing Donald Trump over Ted Cruz.
I see no reason or evidence to believe, in the highly unlikely event Cruz could actually win the White House, a Cruz administration would result in anything but more dashed hopes for conservatives due to the unrelenting influence of the media on, not voters, but elected officials themselves and the "advisor class" who make their living divining "what people think" from, you guessed it, scouring "the media."
Trump has proven his ability to not only rip "the narrative" out of the media's hands, but to beat them about the head and shoulders with it as well.
I am utterly convinced NO elected official will EVER get ANYTHING that can be construed as even nominally "conservative," excepting the most abstruse and esoteric of public policies, though the media gauntlet unless and until they deploy strategies specifically aimed at breaking this Gramscian tyranny.
As this is my conclusion, I see ALL argumentation about the relative "conservatism" of any particular candidate an exercise in vanity and futility.