Product Range Distribution: Donald Trump’s “Fake News” Tactics (The New Yorker)

One of the main contributors and users of the term 'fake news' is Donald Trump who often uses the phrase to dismiss any unfavourable news articles about his administration or himself. He uses the term so often that he is now releasing the Fake News Awards, in which awards will be given to the most corrupt main stream media and those who he deems is responsible for the spread of 'fake news'. The frequency of Trumps use of fake news can be seen in his tweets, so much so that one day in September he tweeted about fake news eight times in one day due to his frustration surrounding the coverage of his administrations response to hurricane Maria. Furthermore Trump has tweeted over a dozen times attacking the coverage of the Russian investigation often referred to as 'the fake-news Russian-collusion story'. On top of declaring accurate news reports as fake-news Trump often contributes to fake news himself by tweeting false or unproven statements. He has also declared that 'one of the greatest of all terms I’ve come up with is ‘fake,’ said on Mike Huckabee’s talk show. Fake-news could also have contributed to Trumps win in the 2016 US Presidential election due to statements such as 'Pope Francis shocks the world, endorses Trump for president' which poison accurate news reporting. In addition Politifact has counted three hundred and twenty-nine public statements by Trump that it judges to be mostly or entirely false. Trumps false statements and declaration about credible media organisations such as CNN, Times and NBC News can often do serious harm as in December 2016 a Libyan broadcaster quoted one of Trump's tweets about CNN in order to discredit a report by the network on the persistence of slavery within the country. 

Despite Trump's attacks on the media it has in many ways strengthen it as this year The Times, Washington Post and other independent professional enterprises have reminded the country why free press is important in order to stand up against abuse of power.