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Team GOP has posted the “highly anticipated” list of winners of the 2017 Fake News Awards, which is limited to the “fake news” that puts President Trump in a negative light.
But while the list is calling out the media for spreading falsehoods about the President, it appears to be spreading some fake news of its own.
Item #1 on the list is “The New York Times’ Paul Krugman claimed on the day of President Trump’s historic landslide victory that the economy would never recover.” While it seems that the authors of the list have never heard of columns or editorials, which are statements of opinion, they also seem to be throwing a bit of spin with the claim that Trump had a “landslide” victory. According to the Federal Election Commission, Trump pulled in 2,868,601 fewer votes than Clinton—falling considerably short of landslide status.
Item #2, “ABC News’ Brian Ross CHOKES and sends markets in a downward spiral with false report,” engages in a bit of deceptive spin as well. While a graphic highlights a 355-point plunge that the markets took between 11:04 a.m. and 11:35 a.m on Friday, Dec. 1, the day of Ross’s report, the Fake News Awards fail to mention that the market quickly rebounded, winding up just 41 points down from the Thursday close and up for the week as whole.
Most of the rest of the items are the sorts of reporting errors that are made all the time, but that Team GOP only notices when they are about Donald Trump, including a misreporting of a handshake between Trump and the Polish First Lady, and CNN’s editing of a video to “make it appear President Trump defiantly overfed fish during a visit with the Japanese prime minister.”
Such reporting, Team GOP claims, takes attention away from the fact that “the President has been getting results.” Those results include “an American energy boom” that has been created by ending Obama-era environmental regulations, an “over $8 trillion” gain in wealth and the claim that “ISIS is in retreat, having been crushed in Iraq and Syria.”
Jeffrey Nesbit, who served as communications director for former vice president Dan Quayle, is named assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Kate Bedingfield, White House communications director, will exit at the end of the month. Ben LaBolt, a longtime Biden adviser, will take the CD post.
Cathy Cochran, senior VP in Teneo’s Washington office, has rejoined the US Dept of Agriculture as director in its communications office.
Mexico is working with the DC-based Global Action on Gun Violence to push for “impactful gun violence prevention strategies” in the US.
Douglas Farrar, who was VP-communications and strategy at the Carnegie Center for International Peace, has joined the Federal Trade Commission as PA director.
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