Washington, Jan 18 US President Donald Trump
has unveiled the winners of his so-called "Fake News Awards" in a
gimmick to escalate his attacks on major media outlets, with CNN, the
New York Times and the Washington Post leading the list.
Trump
sent out a tweet on Wednesday night with a link to the awards on the
Republican Party website. The winners of the spoof awards also included
ABC News, TIME and Newsweek.
The awards listed New York Times
columnist Paul Krugman as the top winner. "Krugman claimed on the day of
President Trump's historic, landslide victory that the economy would
never recover," according to the GOP-hosted website.
Krugman's listing was contrasted with a headline that showed the Dow hitting a record high.
"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," according to the
GOP-hosted website.
The awards were unavailable immediately
following Trump's tweet announcing them, from a traffic overload. "The
site is temporarily offline," it read for nearly an hour after Trump
sent out a tweet to the site.
CNN was blasted for "falsely"
reporting that candidate Trump and his son Trump Jr had access to hacked
documents from WikiLeaks. CNN corrected that report in December.
Other
entries included TIME's mistaken report about Martin Luther King Jr.'s
bust being removed from the Oval Office, CNN's incorrect reporting on
Trump "defiantly overfeeding fish during a visit with the Japanese Prime
Minister" and about former White House communications director "Anthony
Scaramucci's meeting with a Russian."
Trump gave CNN 4 of his 11 "accolades" -- more than any other outlet.
The
list also mentioned the Washington Post for reporting that "the
President's massive sold-out rally in Pensacola, Florida, was empty".
"Dishonest
reporter showed picture of empty arena HOURS before crowd started
pouring in. That reporter apologized, saying he was confused by another
user's shared images," the GOP website stated.
The list also
stated an error by ABC News' veteran reporter Brian Ross, who was
suspended and then reassigned for an erroneous report on Trump and
former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
The awards also
blamed Newsweek for reporting that Polish First Lady Agata
Kornhauser-Duda did not shake the US President's hand. A video that
appeared to capture the missed handshake went viral on social media at
the time.
According to the GOP website, the New York Times
"falsely claimed on the front page that the Trump administration had
hidden a climate report". The report was publicly available at the time
and the paper was forced to issue a correction, it said.
Finally,
the "Fake News Awards" noted that "Russian collusion was perhaps the
greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people. THERE IS NO
COLLUSION!"
The page also listed several accomplishments of the President.
