The Fake News Awards was created by U.S. President Donald Trump to highlight the news outlets he said were responsible for misrepresenting him or producing false reports both before, and during, his presidency. On January 17, 2018, a post to the blog of the GOP website announced the winners. They included reports ranging from comments by journalists on social media to news reports that later required corrections.
Creation
President Trump first proposed an award—then called the "Fake News Trophy"—in a November 2017 tweet: At the time, it was unclear whether he intended to actually create the award. In late December, Trump's re-election campaign sent emails to supporters with a link to an online poll asking them to rank three nominated stories as "fake," "faker" or "fakest" news. Trump next mentioned the awards in a January 2, 2018 tweet. At this time, he called them the "Most Dishonest & Corrupt Media Awards of the Year", and wrote they would be awarded for "dishonesty & bad reporting in various categories". The awards were scheduled for January 8, 2018 at 5pm CST. In a January 7 tweet, Trump changed the date to January 17, citing increased interest in the award. Several late-night talk show hosts, including Samantha Bee and Jimmy Kimmel, satirically campaigned for an award. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert displayed a billboard doing such in New York City's Times Square, with categories including "Least Breitbarty" and "Corruptest Fakeness", and Trevor Noah's The Daily Show bought a full-page ad in The New York Times. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon aired a sketch satirizing the Fake News Awards on January 16.
Awards
The ten stories awarded were from CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC News, Newsweek and Time. An eleventh bonus award was given to reports about Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections in general, which was called "perhaps the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people". The initial announcement of the winners was described by media pundits as a flop, because the Republican Party's website experienced technical difficulties and displayed a 404 error, along with a note that stated "we're making it great again". Eventually, a link to a working blog post was supplied. The three stories on the online poll previously offered to Trump's supporters were ABC's reporting on Michael Flynn, CNN's reporting on Trump access to WikiLeaks documents, and Zeke Miller's erroneous report on the Martin Luther King Jr. bust.
Reception
Reaction to the "awards" was strong from different sources. Trump's supporters view the "awards" as a tongue-in-cheek approach highlighting media bias against the president, while critics view them as an attempt to undermine freedom of the press. In response to the Fake News Awards, the Committee to Protect Journalists announced on January 8, 2018, its "Press Oppressors awards". The group gave Trump the "Overall Achievement in Undermining Global Press Freedom" for inspiring cries of "fake news" in China, Syria, and Russia. Other awards went to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Xi Jinping, and Aung San Suu Kyi. The "awards" were called an assault on a free press and the First Amendment by 2016 presidential candidateEvan McMullin. It was described similarly by The Guardian, who called it "a bizarre spectacle". Trump was also criticized for the awards by Republican Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain. McCain, in an op-ed in The Washington Post, commented that Trump's use of the phrase "fake news" is "being used by autocrats to silence reporters, undermine political opponents, stave off media scrutiny, and mislead citizens". Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy called the awards "fascist propaganda". On Twitter, some media commentators congratulated the "winners", and others mocked the awards. The Twitter account for the New York Daily News expressed disappointment that it did not win an award. The journalist Chris Riotta joked that he was "honored and humbled" to be included in the awards.
