United States President Donald Trump has declared The New York Times as the winner of the ‘Fake News Award’.
Among other recipient of Trump’s unique award were ABC News, CNN, Time and The Washington Post.
Trump announced the award by a tweet on Wednesday.
The website GOP.Com -- where the winners were listed -- crashed soon after Trump announced his Fake News Awards.
“The year 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,” it said.
In a subsequent tweet, Trump said despite some “very corrupt and dishonest” media coverage, there are many great reporters he respects.
“And lots of GOOD NEWS for the American people to be proud of!” he said.
Topping the list was The New York Times’ Paul Krugman story which claimed on the day of Trump’s historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover.
ABC News’ Brian Ross was positioned second. It “CHOKES and sends markets in a downward spiral with false report,” the website said.
CNN received the third prize for “falsely” reporting that candidate Donald Trump and his son Donald J Trump Jr had access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks.
The Time was place fourth for “falsely” reporting that Trump removed a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr from the Oval Office.
The Washington Post was placed last for “falsely” reporting 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,” it said.
In another tweet, Trump alleged that “the dishonest media” was not reporting about “the true story” under his administration.
“Islamic State is in retreat, our economy is booming, investments and jobs are pouring back into the country, and so much more! Together there is nothing we can’t overcome -- even a very biased media. We ARE Making America Great Again!” Trump tweeted.
Trump had, on January 2, announced that he would give away awards to media houses for “dishonesty and bad reporting”.
Trump had coined the term ‘Fake News’ during his presidential campaign, targeting media houses for “biased” news.
Image: The New York Times' Paul Krugman story, which claimed n the day of Trump’s historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover beat the other stories to win the grand prize. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
