Washington: US President Donald Trump has escalated his attack on the media by announcing the ‘Fake News Awards’ for “very corrupt and dishonest” coverage, with a report in The New York Times topping the list.
Mr Trump had coined the term ‘Fake News’ during his presidential campaign, targeting media houses for “biased” news.
The President used Twitter to announce “the winners” of the unique awards. The list of “winners” was also displayed on the Republican National Committee’s website, which crashed soon after the awards were announced. Much of the list centered around coverage of stories on the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.
“2017 was a year of unrelenting bias, unfair news coverage, and even downright fake news. Studies have shown that over 90 per cent of the media’s coverage of President Trump is negative,” the list said. The “awards” were presented in list form and specified particular stories about his presidency.
Topping the list was The New York Times’ story which claimed on the day of Mr Trump’s historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover. ABC News’ story by Brian Ross that Mr Trump directed former national security adviser Michael Flynn to make contact with Russia during the election was positioned second. A story by CNN that Mr Trump and his son had access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks was given third position.
