As usual, this show was a flop.
Trump gives out his 'Fake News Awards' to CNN, N.Y. Times, Wash Post, othersThe president highlighted negative coverage he said showed bias.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/ ... rds-345482President Donald Trump tweeted out the winners of his “Fake News Awards” on Wednesday night, proclaiming, “And the FAKE NEWS winners are...”, with a link to the Republican National Committee website.
There, an unsigned entry opened by saying, “2017 was a year of unrelenting bias, unfair news coverage, and even downright fake news.”
Rather than specific awards, per se, the site listed 10 news stories from a range of mainstream outlets, including CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post that the Trump viewed as false.
The entries focused on stories where the media outlets had admitted errors and issued corrections, like those by ABC News’ Brian Ross, who was suspended and then reassigned for an erroneous report on Trump and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Other entries included Time’s mistaken report about Martin Luther King Jr.’s bust being removed from the oval office
and CNN’s incorrect reporting on when Donald Trump, Jr. had access to hacked Wikileaks documents. (*)
[snip]
When Trump initially sent his tweet, the link to GOP.org did not load for more than an hour. Instead, it displayed an error message reading, “The site is temporarily offline, we are working to bring it back up. Please try back later.” (**)
White House Correspondents Association president Margaret Talev issued a statement in response to the awards, saying, “Reporters will continue to work every day to inform Americans what their government is doing in their name and with their money.”
At an event on press freedom co-hosted by the Newseum and the Committee to Protect Journalists Wednesday night, the affair came to a screeching halt when an audience member mentioned Trump released the awards mid-event.
[snip]
“The number of consequential things on the agenda right now that should be occupying the president’s attention is extraordinarily high, the government shutdown among them,” she added. “One might ask the question, ‘Aren’t there better uses of your time?’” (***)
Longtime Republican strategist Stuart Stevens, believes said the awards could help Trump with his supporters, since it “reinforces what his base wants to believe about news media.”
But he added, “What I am more struck by is just the lack of respect for the Constitution. It is an attack on the First Amendment."The awards were been given out on the same day that Sen. John McCain wrote a column in The Washington Post decrying Trump’s war on the press while fellow Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake compared Trump’s attacks on the media to those made by Joseph Stalin.[snip][end]
(*) We have seen this same story mentioned here. 'nuff said, excelsior.
(**)
(***) Golfing, I suppose.