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. • “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. CNN FALSELY reported that former FBI Director James Comey would dispute President Trump’s claim that he was told he is not under investigation. 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. 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.”
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.