President 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.”

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Rather than specific awards, per se, the site listed 10 news stories — from a range of mainstream outlets, including CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post — that 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.

Entry No. 11 was not another news story, but Trump’s claim that “Russian collusion is perhaps the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people. THERE IS NO COLLUSION.”

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Whether his campaign colluded with Russia to affect the presidential election is currently the subject of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

The page also listed several accomplishments of the president.

Moments after the initial tweet, Trump added a backhanded compliment to some reporters, saying , “Despite some very corrupt and dishonest media coverage, there are many great reporters I respect and lots of GOOD NEWS for the American people to be proud of!”

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 on Wednesday night, the affair came to a screeching halt when an audience member mentioned Trump released the awards mid-event.

CNN’s Jim Acosta, when informed by POLITICO that his network was among the recipients, fired back: "I would say, having been called fake news myself, the president is the king of fake news."

Earlier in the day, political observers questioned the wisdom of the awards to POLITICO.

With the awards, Trump is drawing attention to negative reporting about him, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

“He’s priming stories that are negative, that is, they don’t help him. He’s making them more available and he’s gathering them up in one place,” she said.

“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, 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.

“No longer can we compound attacks on truth with our silent acquiescence,” Flake said. “No longer can we turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to these assaults on our institutions. And Mr. President, 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. And a Congress that fails to act as a check on the president adds to the danger.”

Cristiano Lima contributed to this report.</s>Well, it looks like we spoke too soon. Just when we thought President Donald Trump completely overlooked his "Fake News Awards" on the day the winners were scheduled to be announced, Trump broke his silence and announced that the "votes" (?) are in — kind of. Trump tweeted a link to a page from the GOP official website that would then lead to the "winners" of these co-called awards. But when the link didn't work at first, Twitter users would absolutely not let Trump live it down. And these Tweets about the "Fake News Awards" website malfunctions are absolutely incredible.

At 8:00 PM on Jan. 17, just when the Twitter-verse thought the day was through, Trump tweeted out a link to the winners of his "fakies" (as I like to call them). The link directs you to the GOP's website and it should take you to the blog portion of the site, where the winners of "The Highly-Anticipated 2017 Fake News Awards" are supposed to be listed. But to the dismay of many curious readers, the page was unable to load and showed up as a white screen and stated, "The site is temporarily offline, we are working to bring it back up. Please try back later." And you better believe that Twitter roasted Trump for not having a functioning webpage up and running.

Trump tweeted the link to his "Fake News Awards winners" in the late evening hours on Jan. 17.

But when the website wouldn't show, Twitter fans tore Trump to shreds over it.

And in the spirit of these "awards," my personal favorite roast-tweet of the night goes to...

More to come.</s>Donald Trump has revealed the winners of his Fake News Awards - with the New York Times topping the list.

The US President tweeted that a full list of the results could be found on the Republican National Committee website - but his website link did not work for 90 minutes.

The results describe claims of Russian collusion in the 2016 election as "perhaps the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people".</s>President Donald Trump announced on Twitter last week that he would be doling out special honors for the “Fake News Awards.” Sadly, there weren’t any actual golden statues or red carpet lead-ups to his awards show, only a list of stories that the White House found particular umbrage with.

In his original tweets, Trump said that the “winners” of his Fake News Awards would “cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media.”

White House officials knew of his looming announcement but did not know when the public could expect Trump’s “ceremony.”

But on Wednesday evening, GOP.com posted a handful of stories from the last year that required corrections and the traffic generated from the Fake News Awards actually crashed the site. Unfortunately, Trump will not be hosting any plush after parties, but you can check out his full list of award recipients below.

2017 was a year of unrelenting bias, unfair news coverage, and even downright fake news. Studies have shown that over 90% of the media’s coverage of President Trump is negative. Below are the winners of the 2017 Fake News Awards. 1. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman claimed on the day of President Trump’s historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover. 2. ABC News’ Brian Ross CHOKES and sends markets in a downward spiral with false report. 3. CNN FALSELY reported that candidate Donald Trump and his son Donald J. Trump, Jr. had access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks. 4. TIME FALSELY reported that President Trump removed a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. from the Oval Office. 5. Washington Post FALSELY reported 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. 6. CNN FALSELY edited a video to make it appear President Trump defiantly overfed fish during a visit with the Japanese prime minister. Japanese prime minister actually led the way with the feeding. 7. CNN FALSELY reported about Anthony Scaramucci’s meeting with a Russian, but retracted it due to a “significant breakdown in process.” 8. Newsweek FALSELY reported that Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda did not shake President Trump’s hand. 9. CNN FALSELY reported that former FBI Director James Comey would dispute President Trump’s claim that he was told he is not under investigation. 10. The New York Times FALSELY claimed on the front page that the Trump administration had hidden a climate report. 11. And last, but not least: “RUSSIA COLLUSION!” Russian collusion is perhaps the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people. THERE IS NO COLLUSION! While the media spent 90% of the time focused on negative coverage or fake news, the President has been getting results: 1. The economy has created nearly 2 million jobs and gained over $8 trillion in wealth since the President’s inauguration. 2. African Americans and Hispanics are enjoying the lowest unemployment rate in recorded history. 3. The President signed historic tax cuts and relief for hardworking Americans not seen since President Reagan. 4. President Trump’s plan to cut regulations has exceeded “2 out for every 1 in” mandate, issuing 22 deregulatory actions for every one new regulatory action. 5. The President has unleashed an American energy boom by ending Obama-era regulations, approving the Keystone pipeline, auctioning off millions of new acres for energy exploration, and opening up ANWR. 6. ISIS is in retreat, having been crushed in Iraq and Syria. 7. President Trump followed through on his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and instructed the State Department to begin to relocate the Embassy. 8. With President Trump’s encouragement, more member nations are paying their fair share for the common defense in the NATO alliance. 9. Signed the Veterans Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act to allow senior officials in the VA to fire failing employees and establishes safeguards to protect whistleblowers. 10. President Trump kept his promise and appointed Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In response to Trump’s “Fake News Awards,” comedian Michael Rapaport took to Facebook for a mini-rant criticizing the Commander in Chief and declaring him a “Fake President.”

“Dopey ass, bitch ass, dick stain Donald Trump,” Rapaport said in his Facebook video. “Motherfucking clown ass, fake ass president. Bum ass, botox in the face, corny ass, big tooth, overweight, bloated motherfucking president. All the shit that’s going on in the world and you release the ‘Fake News Awards’? You fucking bum.”

You can see his full comments here:

Rapaport has made it a habit to go after the president through social media rants. Earlier this month, he fired off multiple Tweets in Trump’s direction and called him a “sick animal.”</s>Jack is a lifestyle writer for Verdict, covering Netflix, gaming, and film. You can reach him at jack.rear@verdict.co.uk

You’ve got to hand it to Donald Trump he knows how to flog a dead horse.

Since entering the White House on 20 January 2017 almost a year ago the president has mentioned the phrase “fake news” no less than 185 times on Twitter alone.

At the end of November, Trump suggested holding a contest for all the so-called fake news outlets so they could battle it out to be crowned the ultimate purveyor of fake news.

While most people assumed this was merely a flight of fancy, Trump was serious.

So, if you were wondering “when are the fake news awards?” No worries. Your friend Donald has the answer:

Since then, Trump has not said (or tweeted) anything about when the inaugural Fake News Awards will be nor what they will entail, or even who is nominated. For those who follow award shows with great interest, this is VERY SAD indeed.

This morning “failing” New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum tweeted that the Fake News Awards had been downgraded to a “potential event” by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.

However, fear not Verdict is here to make fake news great again!

We would never presume to know what lies inside the mind of someone who would “qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!” Only a real LOSER would even try.

As such, we will not waste our time trying to make predictions on who might win big at the Fake News Awards.

Instead, we’ll be hosting our own spin on the Fake News Awards! Allow us to introduce The Fake Tweet Awards.

We’ll be celebrating and congratulating the best lies, most demonstrably false sentiments, and the most laughably ridiculous tweets of all time. There’s one big winner! Can you guess who it is?

For the tweeter who displays the most outlandishly incorrect view of their own popularity?

That’s right, folks! It’s Donald Trump! Unfortunately for the Donald, according to research by the independent polling firm Gallup, not only is he personally unpopular, but he’s actually the least popular president of all time. Trump’s approval ratings are just 38 percent on average. The average for US presidents is 53 percent. For presidents who’ve been in the White House as long as Trump, the average is 64 percent.

Unfortunately, for Trump, his personal most-hated president, Barrack Obama, had an average approval rating of 49 percent.

So far, Trump has referred to himself as “your favourite president” twice.

One of the most famous quotes from US founding father, Benjamin Franklin is:

Not much can be done about the former, so we might as well spend our time discussing the latter.

The award for best fake tweet about taxes goes to US president Donald Trump for this tweet.

While Trump has tweeted about tax 178 times (fewer times than he’s mentioned fake news) this one is the culmination of a score of other laughably incorrect statements about his plans to cut taxes for Americans.

The Committee For A Responsible Federal Budget found that this is not the case. In fact, this tax cut is actually the 8th largest since 1918.

The president with the largest tax cuts in history is Ronald Reagan in 1981, who cut cost 2.9 percent of GDP over four years.

The same source, also refuted Trump’s suggestion that tax cuts would pay for themselves. They do not.

The US economy would have to grow between $5 and $6 for every $1 in tax cuts in order for these cuts to be self-financing. Bloomberg report that the tax bill will actually end up costing America between $1trn and $1.5trn.

One of the most pressing issues for someone who already won an election is, of course, finding evidence to prove that the person who didn’t win must have cheated. Obviously.

This award must go to the one and only US president Donald Trump for his obsession with voter fraud.

Trump has tweeted about voter fraud three times after winning the election. But off the Twittersphere, he went even further by creating a Commission On Voter Fraud.

This commission recently fell apart because states refused to release voters’ personal information to the commission who did not provide any explanation of what they’d be doing with that information.

However, the most important thing to remember is that voter fraud simply doesn’t exist. The idea has been debunked by impartial political fact-checkers, Politifact eight times at the time of writing.

They cite Lorraine Minnite who has been tracking voter fraud since 2001. She has served as an expert witness allowing her to gain first-hand insight into election processes in Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Kansas.

The presidential record for passing the most legislation in the first 100 days is held by Harry Truman.

He signed 129 bills in his first 100 days. After his first hundred days, Trump boasted that he’d beat Truman’s record after signing 28. So, unfortunately, no. That was incorrect.

Trump once again comes away the big winner, taking home the Fake Tweet Award for the Lotsa’ Legislation category.

A report from nonpartisan website gov.track which collects governmental data on 21 December found that Trump had passed 94 pieces of legislation during his time in office.

The next day, he signed two further pieces. So currently, he’s on 96 pieces of legislation in 362 days (at the time of writing.)

That’s actually the fewest of any president at this point in their respective tenures. George W Bush had 102, Ronald Reagan had 108, Barack Obama had 118, Bill Clinton had 209, and the numbers just keep going up from there.

The award for most legislation passed at this point in their presidency actually belongs to John F Kennedy who signed 684.

To be fair to Trump, the legislation he has passed is generally longer. The 96 bills he’s signed equate to 2,038 while Kennedy’s 684 filled up only 1,404.

The trouble is, Obama had 3,474 pages at this point, Bill Clinton had 2,556, and George HW Bush had 2,518.

There is no one Trump likes to accuse of lying more than Crooked Hillary Clinton. Trump has tweeted about his former presidential opponent Hillary Clinton 56 times since taking office, referring to her as ‘crooked’ 37 times.

There are many contenders but the Lies About Lies Award has to go to this gem where Trump claimed Clinton lied to the FBI (presumably about her emails.)

At the time, there was an extensive interrogation of Clinton by the FBI, examining her use of a private email server in her home where she allegedly had classified emails from the State Department.

However, the Justice Department did not prosecute Clinton because they found no information that Clinton intentionally mishandled her emails.

Then-director of the FBI, James Comey was explicitly asked by Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va whether Clinton had lied. Comey replied:

He had to repeat himself in response to a further question on the subject from then-Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C. and said:

Comey repeated again and again that there was no evidence Clinton ever lied to the FBI. So case closed, she did not.

Few issues are more seriously, or more potentially deadly than the threat of nuclear war. The Doomsday Clock is widely expected to move closer to midnight as a result of the ongoing feud between Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.

Of course, nuclear war isn’t something that anyone should flippantly tweet about. Much less tweet incorrect information about.

It would take a really SAD LOSER to take such a laissez-faire attitude to such matters. However, this particular tweet stands out as a great example of just such a person.

Now, this isn’t technically false (as far as we know, because who knows whether either the US or North Korea’s nuclear arsenal actually works. Let’s hope we never have to find out.) The issue is one of semantics. Trump doesn’t have a nuclear button because such a device does not exist.

In fact, all US presidents are accompanied by the nuclear football. This is a briefcase containing codes which, when given to certain military authorities, would trigger a nuclear attack.

It also wouldn’t be placed on Trump’s desk like he claims Kim Jong-un’s would be. Instead, an aide carries the football. Bill Gulley, the former director of the White House Military Office, wrote in his book Breaking Cover about the contents of the briefcase:

We know that Trump hasn’t changed systems or policies, because an aide carrying the football was photographed with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

For those who are breathing a sigh of relief at the idea that Trump couldn’t start a nuclear war by simply toying with a button, don’t rest too easy. There are no safeguards around the use of the codes to verify the commander-in-chief’s sanity.

Former US president Richard Nixon actually had an Air Force major discharged after he suggested he would query the receipt of the codes and whether they came from a ‘sane’ president.

Have you guessed who could possibly have won this one?

Yes, that’s right, Donald Trump has won the award for fake tweets which alienate allies.

The real question is which tweet could have won. There have, after all, been a lot. Could it be the debunked videos from the time he retweeted far-right British citizen Jayda Franzen? Could it be the time he took London mayor Sadiq Khan’s comments wildly out of context? The time he said Canada made business for dairy farmers in Wisconsin very difficult? When he said Mexico had one of the highest crime rates in the world?

All are worthy choices, but the winner of the Alienating Allies Award goes to this pair:

Not only is this wrong, but the whole premise is illogical. NATO is an agreement, not a central fund. Thus Germany cannot owe money to it.

The idea that Trump is getting at is in 2014, NATO’s collective agreement directed members to spend two percent of their GDP on defence by 2024. Of the 28 NATO allies, so far only five, the US, the UK, Greece, Estonia, and Poland have reached that target so far.

Germany is currently spending 1.2 percent of its GDP on defence.

Sure, the US does spend far more on defence than other countries, but that is it’s own choice. Also, this isn’t done as a favour to Europe, but because a free and open Europe is vital to peace in the USA and a stable economy.

You probably guessed by this award’s title, but, yes, it’s another win for Donald Trump.

Since coining the phrase in 2012, Trump has consistently referred to the “failing New York Times” in his tweets. He’s actually tweeted about the subject 74 times.

Unfortunately for the commander in chief, this simply isn’t the case.

The New York Times actually hit record subscriber numbers in 2017, with 2.2m online-only subscribers. Also, its circulation revenue was up. In 2012 when Trump first coined the phrase, revenue was at $795m and by 2016 it was at $880m.

An ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a snake eating its own tail. It represents an infinite cycle of creation and destruction.

The winner of this award is a tweet which we’ve already mentioned, but hasn’t won an award yet.

Here is that tweet:

Why did this one win the Ouroboros award?

Well, because of another tweet from a journalist at the (failing) New York Times which came in during the writing of this piece. That journalist was at the White House press conference this morning where Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee-Sanders discussed the Fake News Awards.

Trump’s original is, therefore, a tweet containing fake news about the Fake News Awards. It is fakery on fakery, leading to an infinite regress of fake news. When are the fake news awards? Will Trump tweet about the awards again, leading to further fake news about fake news? Who knows! Anything’s possible!</s>President Trump has been--for him, anyway--unusually quiet in recent days--at least with regard to his "Fake News Awards." A week ago, Trump told us "the interest in, and importance of" the awards had been "far greater than anyone could have anticipated" and he postponed announcing winners from January 8 to January 17.

So here we are, on the eve of history, and we still don't know much about Mr. Trump's intentions. Trump being Trump, it's as easy to imagine a glitzy awards ceremony with "fake news" statuettes engraved with the names of the president's least favorite journalists as it is to imagine him firing off a tweet punting the awards to some date down the road since there's just too much work to do. Sad!

One path lets Trump win, the other presents a real chance for Fake News Awards winners to have the last laugh as the president winds up the big loser of his own fake awards.

First, let's say he's serious and the president of the United States intends to set aside time Wednesday to host a made-up awards show. Trump previously--and clunkily--called the awards "The Most Dishonest and Corrupt Media Awards of the Year," and suggested those awards would be handed out to journalists in "various categories" of "dishonesty and bad reporting."

Beyond that, Trump has kept the members of the fake news media in suspense about every other detail--leaving potential winners in the dark about whether or not they need to arrange a date, a dress or a babysitter, and where, precisely, the awards ceremony might be held. On the eve of the awards, we don't even know who's been nominated. What do the awards look like? Are they gold?

Critics say they'd better not be government-purchased. Walter Shaub, a former director of the Office of Government Ethics and a critic of the president, warned White House staffers that anyone who works on the Fake News Awards or posts it on the White House website, would be in violation of rules that prohibit government workers from using official work time or money to try and help or hurt private companies (as in attempting to hurt CNN and boost Fox News, for instance). Shaub added, "beware of laws on using federal appropriations too, if there are any visuals, certificates, handouts, or trophies."

Sorry, guys. I guess you can put those photos back on your mantle.

But then again, there's plenty of reason to believe Trump never intended to use the Fake News Awards to shame specific journalists for specific stories that he found "bad or dishonest." While he says the awards would be going to "the most corrupt and biased of the Mainstream Media," a review of each and every one of the president's #fakenews tweets since before taking office shows he very rarely mentions reporters by name, and almost always uses his strongest language to blast the "fake news media" in often very vague terms--essentially, he prefers to sub-tweet his attacks, rather than naming names.

From December 2016 through January 2018, more than 60% of Trump's #fakenews tweets make no mention of a specific journalist or news organization.

Last October, Trump called NBC News "dishonest and disgusting" in one tweet, and "a disgrace to good reporting" in another:

In that case, Trump never accused any specific NBC News reporters of lying. As has been his style over the past year, his toughest talk takes on networks or newspapers--and often, nothing more specific than the "fake news media" in general:

Trump's favorite target is CNN, which he mentioned in #fakenews tweets more than any other news organization, ahead of NBC, the "failing" New York Times and the Washington Post. CNN is often attacked in the president's tweets without any reference to what has made Trump angry. Last December, without providing any context, Trump said "CNN's slogan is CNN, THE MOST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS. Everyone knows this is not true, that this could, in fact, be a fraud on the American Public."

Trump has accused all the fake news media of "totally misrepresent what I say," of "distorting democracy," and of being an "enemy of the state," but in each of these cases, as he attacks the free press in terms rarely heard from a sitting president, he never actually calls out anybody for getting their facts wrong, making a mistake, or displaying bias of any kind.

One of the rare exceptions involved ABC's Brian Ross, who was suspended over a story in December. In a tweet, Trump congratulated the network, calling Ross' story "horrendously inaccurate and dishonest." But a week later, the president used similar language to accuse CNN of a "vicious and purposeful mistake" without mentioning a story or a reporter.

So maybe Trump has decided to sit down and finally lay out his case against the media, detailing which journalists have lied, which reporters have let their bias seep into their stories, and which news organizations have misled their audiences. But that would be a major shift in the way Trump handles the fake news media--and it would also give his targets a chance to actually respond to his specifics.

A glitzy awards show would be undignified and reinforce the image of Donald Trump that Michael Wolff put forward: a TV-obsessed leader who lets himself become angry over news stories while simultaneously ignoring the far more difficult job of managing foreign and domestic policy.

But what if there's no "show," just a series of #fakenews tweets naming journalists as big-time losers and branding them as Fake News Awards recipients? He could simply name his least favorite reporters without saying why they won, but that would seem entirely childish. To hand out awards, we need to know what they did to deserve the honor--and that carries yet another risk for the president. Any laundry list of complaints over stories dating back months--no matter how much the reporting wounded or angered the president--would by necessity mean directing attention back to the damaging story itself, resurrecting it and all of its awful "lies." As any media expert will tell you, when the news cycle moves past the story that you hated, you don't throw an awards show to give you a chance to talk about the story all over again.

And without some real, concrete grievances, the only result will be journalists updating their Twitter bios to reflect having been singled out by the president as the fakest of all fake newsers, a kind of badge of honor.

So how can Mr. Trump emerge from this self-made media mess a winner? Well, killing it would be the cleanest option. On Wednesday, as the president and his staff go about their jobs, making absolutely no mention of the Fake News Awards, they play chicken with the White House Press Corps. Will some reporter, with a world of serious issues confronting the country, waste a question to ask, "Hey, are you still going to give us awards today?"

Without a word from Trump himself, Sarah Sanders can witheringly inform the reporters that the president doesn't have time to do anything but occasionally joke about Fake News Awards. Leaning in to lecture the journalists like children, she could say the fact that you marked your calendars and seem disappointed tells America who you are and what you care about: your own selves. You all are mirror-obsessed vanity junkies who'd rather hear the president say your name than do real reporting about real people.

Get out of here. We've got work to do.</s>Donald Trump has been promising to stage his very own fake news awards for a little while now.

Donald Trump has been promising to stage his very own fake news awards for a little while now.

Donald Trump finally held his Fake News Awards but not everyone was impressed

I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 o’clock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 The US president has been enthusiastic on Twitter about “the most dishonest and corrupt media awards of the year”, which were downgraded to a “potential event” by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, and then rescheduled.

The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 But when the time finally came, there was no presenter, no ceremony and no trophies for the winners – just a static web page that immediately crashed after the president tweeted a link to it. I think Trump broke the GOP website



"The site is temporarily offline, we are working to bring it back up. Please try back later."https://t.co/7H5fbwiKyK https://t.co/4QO61EGxLI — Trevor Robb (@TrevorRobb_) January 18, 2018 Some people couldn’t help but see the irony.

You know what kind of website would adequately prepare for a massive influx of traffic for a highly anticipated story so it doesn’t crash?



A news website. — Jack Jenkins (@jackmjenkins) January 18, 2018 Maybe Trump could’ve done with some technical help from the most dishonest and corrupt media themselves. It reminded others of another infamous competition mistake.

Once the Republican party-hosted page was back online, we saw the winners. CNN came away with four “awards”, an unsurprising result considering that last year Trump tweeted a GIF of himself beating up a man with the broadcaster’s logo superimposed over his face.

Congrats to CNN on its 4 big Fake News awards! pic.twitter.com/KMfcbMaEu9 — Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) January 18, 2018 The New York Times got two, and ABC, Time, the Washington Post and Newsweek all got mentions. Here's the full list of Trump's #FakeNewsAwards



Archived link here: https://t.co/kvpeuQG9TZ pic.twitter.com/AHMlJmlVXU — Anup Kaphle (@AnupKaphle) January 18, 2018 Some people were disappointed with the non-existent ceremony’s compere.

Some pointed out that the factual inaccuracies some of the “awards” referenced had been quickly clarified by the news organisations. Worth nothing that most of the 11 recipients of the Fake News Awards issued corrections or faced consequences for inaccurate reporting. That's how journalism works.https://t.co/ZcLZ0pxd7i — Mike Rosenberg (@ByRosenberg) January 18, 2018 Some were annoyed that Trump and the Republicans were giving so much time to a publicity stunt, rather than the imminent government shutdown.

Trump and the RNC focused on rolling out Fake News Awards instead of negotiating to avoid a shutdown. 



Very cool, very presidential. — Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) January 18, 2018 If the two major parties in Washington can’t agree on a funding bill before the weekend, hundreds of thousands of federal employees will not be allowed to go to work. But it’s not all bad news for the press – the president did say there were some journalists he respects.

Despite some very corrupt and dishonest media coverage, there are many great reporters I respect and lots of GOOD NEWS for the American people to be proud of! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 The Republicans just seemed to be chuffed that their site got so much attention. Tonight, https://t.co/YTZAIJpNhb saw more traffic than ever before. Even though the servers were scaled up, the interest was even greater than anticipated. Traffic is off the charts. Come back soon. — GOP (@GOP) January 18, 2018 Well, it wouldn’t be awards season without a little bit of chaos.</s>CNN was the big four-time award winner in President Donald Trump’s Wednesday night “Fake News Awards” unveiling that presented eleven total awards.

Trump tweeted out a link to the awards, which were presented on the GOP website. The website was down for a considerable period of time after Trump tweeted it out.
• “CNN FALSELY reported that candidate Donald Trump and his son Donald J. Trump, Jr. had access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks.” Directly below this award, third on the list, was a Fox News headline that read, “CNN botches dates, inaccurately reports Trump campaign had Wikileaks sneak peak”
• “CNN FALSELY edited a video to make it appear President Trump defiantly overfed fish during a visit with the Japanese prime minister. Japanese prime minister actually led the way with the feeding.” Below the award, sixth on the list, was a video clip of Abe tossing his box of fish food into the pond, followed immediately by Trump doing the same.</s>President Donald Trump has announced the “winners” of his “Fake News Awards.” While the link failed to open for many amid the high internet traffic, a web archive reveals the New York Times and CNN are among the top three.

Trump also tweeted that there are “great reporters” whom he respects. He did not name any of those journalists, though, unlike the treatment dished out to the “Fake News” awardees.

A blog titled “The Highly-Anticipated 2017 Fake News Awards” on the official Republican Party website shows the top winner of Trump’s fake news accolades to be New York Times columinist and economist Paul Krugman, who claimed on Election Day 2016 that the “economy would never recover” from Trump’s “historic, landslide victory,” according to a copy of the GOP blog archived by the nonprofit Internet Archive.

Second place went to ABC News’ Brian Ross, whose reporting cited an anonymous source claiming that an associate of Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn was going to testify that Trump “directed him to make contact with the Russians” while being a presidential candidate. Ross, however, corrected his story to say that Trump was president-elect at the time, only after crashing the stock market.

CNN scooped third place. Without mentioning CNN congressional correspondent Manu Raju by name, the award refers to a false report that Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., received advanced exclusive access to documents published by Wikileaks via email. Raju corrected it once he discovered that his anonymous source got the date of the email wrong, but not before several other news networks made the exact same error, also citing anonymous sources.

The so-called awards went on to list seven other inaccurate stories about Trump that were later corrected, from Trump removing a Martin Luther King, Jr. bust from the Oval Office, to Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda not shaking his hand, to false news of the Trump administration hiding a climate change report.

The eleventh slot awarded no particular outlet or journalist. It simply read: “In Trump’s words, ‘‘RUSSIA COLLUSION!’ Russian collusion is perhaps the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people. THERE IS NO COLLUSION!’”

Trump’s announcement coincided with an event at the Newseum in Washington, DC, where White House correspondents Jim Acosta of CNN, John Roberts of Fox News and April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks discussed “Journalism in the Trump Era: Assessing Press Freedom in the United States.” Trump was heavily criticized during the DC forum for going too far during his campaign, and, as president, for routinely condemning outlets he deemed “fake news media.”</s>President Donald Trump’s “Fake News Awards” landed with a giant thud Wednesday night, as the link to the award page Trump tweeted out led to a 404 error page.

“And the FAKE NEWS winners are...” Trump tweeted, with a link to the Republican National Committee’s website that teased, “The Highly-Anticipated [sic] 2017 Fake News Awards.”

Those who clicked through either got a 404 error page, or a message saying, “The site is temporarily offline, we are working to bring it back up. Please try back later.”

In order to see the actual Fake News Awards, one had to search a cached version of the site.

Once it eventually loaded, users found the rather predictable results — all outlets the presidents has criticized in his first year in office.

ABC’s Brian Ross received a gong for an incorrect report on the Russia investigation that led to the journalist’s suspension from and eventual demotion at the network.

Most of the other acknowledgements were petty, and about unimportant events.

One Fake News Award went to a tweet from a Washington Post reporter who incorrectly said the crowd size at a Trump rally was small — a tweet the reporter ultimately corrected.

TIME received a Fake News Award after a reporter had incorrectly sent out a White House pool report that Trump had a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. removed from the Oval Office. The reporter quickly corrected himself in a subsequent pool report.

Another went to CNN, which showed video of Trump appearing to over-feed fish at a koi pond in Japan in November 2017.

Fox News, the Trump-friendly conservative network which has made a number of errors in its reporting, predictably didn’t receive any of the president’s Fake News Awards.

Trump faced backlash for the awards, including from Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, who delivered a stinging rebuke of Trump’s attacks on the press in a speech Wednesday on the Senate floor.

“No matter how powerful, no president will ever have dominion over objective reality,” Flake said.

Facing backlash, Trump sought to soften the blow by tweeting that some reporters are good.

“Despite some very corrupt and dishonest media coverage, there are many great reporters I respect and lots of GOOD NEWS for the American people to be proud of!” Trump tweeted, shortly after releasing the awards.
Donald Trump tweets a link to the Republican National Committee's "Fake News Awards", won by ten stories and tweets that he considers misreported. The link also honors ten ways the President "has been getting results" thus far.