Jan. 17 (UPI) — President Donald Trump announced his “Fake News” awards Wednesday night, making good on his promise to criticize the media for false stories that incorrectly criticized him.
Most of the stories Trump included in his list were reports that turned out to be false. At the top of the list was The New York Times’ columnist Paul Krugman, who said on the day Trump was elected that the stock markets would “never” recover from the plunge they took at the time.
Throughout 2017, however, the Dow hit historically high marks. And today, the Dow closed above 26,000 for the first time in history.
In a tweet he posted shortly before his Fake News Awards announcement, Trump pointed out a news article that said holiday sales in 2017 were the highest since the 2008 recession.
“Main Street is BACK! Strongest Holiday Sales bump since the Great Recession — beating forecasts by BILLIONS OF DOLLARS,” Trump wrote.
Next on the list was ABC’s Brian Ross, who incorrectly reported last month that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was prepared to testify to the FBI that Trump instructed him to contact Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The report turned out to be false and ABC News suspended Ross.
Trump’s awards announcement blog post said Ross was responsible for a deep dip in the stock market on Dec. 1, the day the report was published.
Placing third on the list was CNN, which Trump regularly dismisses as a “fake news” network, for incorrectly reporting that Trump’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., had access to the Wikileaks files of Democratic Party emails before they were published.
That report also turned out to be false.
“CNN’s initial reporting of the date on an email sent to members of the Trump campaign about Wikileaks documents, which was confirmed by two sources to CNN, was incorrect,” CNN said in a statement in December.
Trump also acknowledged news stories about flubs, such as overfeeding fish during a visit to Japan, and slights, such as removing a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the White House. Both of those stories turned out to be false.
Trump’s media criticism efforts on Wednesday came on the same day Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., blasted Trump for the president’s tendency to speak out against unfavorable news coverage and compared him to dictators like the former Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin.
“When a figure in power reflectively calls any press that doesn’t suit him ‘fake news’ it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press,” Flake said.
Flake’s remarks didn’t mention news stories that turned out to be false.
The UPI story is a poor choice for reporting on the ‘event.’ Mr. Trump included examples from opinion pieces. Opinion isn’t news. It also fails to point out when news agencies owned up to their reporting errors, sometimes even disciplining or removing reporters. The news agencies have demonstrated accountability. Would that the same level of accountability was present in Mr. Trump’s world. I recommend you also include articles from news outlets that include a more comprehensive assessment.