Trump Labels Free Press ‘Out of Control’ and ‘A Stain on America!’ in Latest Attack
“Correct Reporting Means Nothing to Themâ€
The President of the United States returned to Twitter Sunday afternoon to provide the world with his latest attack on the free press.
“Very little discussion of all the purposely false and defamatory stories put out this week by the Fake News Media,†Donald Trump wrote. “They are out of control – correct reporting means nothing to them. Major lies written, then forced to be withdrawn after they are exposed…a stain on America!â€
Very little discussion of all the purposely false and defamatory stories put out this week by the Fake News Media. They are out of control – correct reporting means nothing to them. Major lies written, then forced to be withdrawn after they are exposed…a stain on America!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2017
The topic of “fake news,†a favorite of the president’s coined for that which paints him unfavorably or that he disagrees with, has been covered at length all week. Just today, his preferred outlet Fox News even covered the matter – and while discussing it, provided fake news themselves.
Furthermore, they were forced to correct a report that advised embattled Senate hopeful Roy Moore’s accuser Beverly Young Nelson had forged his signature in her 1977 yearbook. She did not, and the matter led to “#ThingsITrustMoreThanFoxNews†trending on Twitter.
These incidents are likely not what drew the president’s ire after his latest golf outing today, however, given his weekend of CNN and ABC bashing.
CNN corrected a report this week that Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and others in the Trump organization received an email offering a decryption key and website addressed for hacked WikiLeaks documents – after the outlet reported the date of the email as September 14th rather than the 4th.
On Saturday evening, Donald Trump attacked The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel, demanding a retraction from the outlet and an apology for one of the reporter’s personal tweets. Weigel, from his personal Twitter account, had posted an image that questioned the crowd size of the event the president held on Friday.
The President of the United States, after Weigel apologized, called for the journalist and private citizen’s firing. As NCRM has noted, journalists make mistakes – and responsible journalists correct those mistakes.
Earlier this month, Donald Trump retweeted three extremist anti-Muslim videos that were literally fake news, something the White House advised didn’t matter because “whether it’s a real video, the threat is real.â€
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