US President Donald Trump has faced backlash including from some of
his own party members after he released the “Fake News Awards” list
which highlighted journalists’ error
Trump announced the release of the list on Wednesday, Jan 17, 2018,
via his preferred medium, Twitter. The “awards” were revealed on the
Republican National Committee’s website (gop.com) which swiftly crashed
as a result of the traffic.
The fake news awards list ranged from minor errors by journalists on
social media to news reports that later invited corrections. The New
York Times and CNN were the most frequently named fake news winners.
Much of the list centered around reporting on the investigation into
whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016
election. The president has repeatedly dismissed the inquiry as “fake
news”, despite the consensus of the US government and its allies that
Moscow worked to sway the presidential election in Trump’s favor.
Shortly after making the awards public, Americans and people all over
the world criticized Trump for his decision to hold “Fake News Awards”.
People said this action marked a bizarre spectacle even by the
standards of an impulsive president.
In reply to Trump’s Fake News Award tweet, Alex Conant, a Republican,
tweeted: “10 years ago I was press secretary for @GOP. Lots of good
people working there today. I’m working hard to help them elect
Republicans in 2018. But these tactics by @realDonaldTrump are not
helpful to anybody except Chuck & Nancy.”
Two prominent Republican lawmakers rebuked Trump’s treatment of the
media leading up to his “Fake News Awards”. John McCain and Jeff Flake,
both senators from Arizona pleaded with the president to retreat from
his war against the press.
In an op-ed published Tuesday, McCain said Trump’s attacks on the media “provided cover for repressive regimes to follow suit”.
“The phrase ‘fake news’ – granted legitimacy by an American president
– is being used by autocrats to silence reporters, undermine political
opponents, stave off media scrutiny and mislead citizens,” McCain wrote.
“We cannot afford to abdicate America’s longstanding role as the
defender of human rights and democratic principles throughout the
world.”
Flake, who is retiring from the Senate at the end of the year, took aim at Trump in a damning speech from the Senate floor.
“An American president who cannot take criticism, who must constantly
deflect and distort and distract, who must find someone else to blame,
is charting a very dangerous path,” Flake said. “It is a testament to
the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words
infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies.”
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