US President Donald Trump is never short of enemies – internal or external. A day after he declared America’s withdrawal from the Iran deal of 2015, Trump renewed his battle with the media at home – a foe he has locked horn with since his pre-presidency days, Trump blasted it as ‘fake news’ on Twitter yet again.
On Wednesday, May 9, Trump wrote on Twitter that even when his administration was achieving success in the economic and other sectors, 91 per cent of the news about him was negative which he also termed “fake”.
Trump also asked in his tweet the purpose in working hard to cooperate with the “corrupt” media and threatened with taking away journalists’ credentials.
According to a report in the Independent, Trump was apparently responding to a segment on news programme Fox & Friends where figures compiled by right-wing media watchdog Media Research Center were shown. According to them, the “liberal media’s war” against the American president was as fierce during the first four months of 2018. They also said that 90 per cent of the comments made about Trump during evening news broadcasts on channels like ABC, NBS and NBC were negative.
Hence, Trump felt the need to revoke the journalists’ credentials.
In the US, journalists need to get and present press credentials to get permission to enter and report from places like the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and other government agencies.
Trump has always had a rough relation with the media even when he was campaigning for the presidential election in 2016, dubbing it as fake and corrupt. His confrontation with the mainstream media, which also showed him in a negative light, saw Trump trusting Twitter more for his expressions and even uttering his administration’s stand on official matters.
Trump has also been seen encouraging violence against the media and last month, he skipped – for the second year in a row – the White House Correspondents Dinner to assert his hatred for the “fake news liberals”.
oneindia
