The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website May 9, 2018:
President Trump started a trend: calling unfavorable news coverage fake. Foreign leaders — especially dictators and authoritarian regimes — have followed suit. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
A generous interpretation of President Trump’s views on “fake” news is that he believes that media outlets are overly quick to be critical of his decisions and his administration. In other words, he applies an overly broad term to a perceived phenomenon for which there can at least be an argument made.
There’s no evidence that this is the boundary that Trump observes, of course. We often consider Trump’s actions as president through the lens of what presidents do instead of the lens of what Trump does. A president wouldn’t simply wave away negative coverage as phony, contrived or dangerous to the country. Trump would. He’s made this clear since he launched his campaign, lashing out against news outlets that covered him critically, including barring them from his events. And he just made it explicitly clear. Continue reading “Trump makes it explicit: Negative coverage of him is fake coverage”