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While Trump wants to award best fake news media, he receives the Media oppressor award

Why planning to award the MOST DISHONEST AND CORRUPT MEDIA OF THE YEAR, President of the United States of America, Donald Trump has received a more denting award as the ‘Overall Achievement in Undermining Global Press Freedom’.

The award conducted in New York by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a journalists’ and press freedom campaign organization based in the U.S., revealed President Trump as the overall winner, after also emerging ‘Runner-Up’ to President Recep Erdoğan of Turkey, winner of the ‘Most Thin-skinned’ award. A strange award for a President who survived a coup and boldly stands against Israel.

Explaining why the award was accorded him, CPJ said the U.S., with its First Amendment protection for a free Press, had long stood as a beacon for independent media around the world.

 “While previous U.S. presidents have each criticised the press to some degree, they have also made public commitments to uphold its essential role in democracy, at home and abroad.

“Under Trump’s administration, the Department of Justice has failed to commit to guidelines intended to protect journalists’ sources, and the State Department has proposed to cut funding for international organisations that help buttress international norms in support of free expression.”

The award was reported to be a response to the ‘Fake News Award’ Mr. Trump promised to announce on January 7, which was later postponed to 17.

However, on Sunday, he said: “The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, Jan. 17, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!”

Fellow Awardees

Other award recipients are Mr. Erdogan; (Most Outrageous Use of Terror Laws Against the Press), with President AbdelFattah al-Sisi of Egypt as ‘Runner-Up’.

President Xi Jinping of China; (Tightest Grip on Media) – excluded countries with no independent media, such as North Korea and Eritrea, while President Vladimir Putin of Russia emerged ‘Runner-Up’

State Counsellor and de facto leader Aung Suu-Kyi of Myanmar; (Biggest Backslider in Press Freedom), and President Andrzej Duda of Poland was ‘Runner-Up’.

CPJ further stated that Trump regularly attacks outlets and individual journalists on Twitter and in speeches, calling them ‘sad,’ ‘failing,’ or ‘garbage.’

According to CPJ, Trump had threatened to ‘open-up’ U.S. libel laws, sue news outlets, and subject their broadcast licenses to review, in response to Media coverage critical of him.

“Since declaring his presidential candidacy in 2015, Trump has posted about 1,000 tweets critical of the Press.

“CPJ research shows that when public figures and political leaders lob insults at the media, they encourage self-censorship and expose journalists to unnecessary risk.”

The journalists’ organization said amid the public discourse of fake news and Mr. Trump’s announcement via Twitter about his planned “fake news” awards ceremony, CPJ was recognizing world leaders who had gone out of their way to attack the Press and undermine the norms that supported freedom of the Media.

“Authorities in China, Syria, and Russia have adopted Trump’s “fake news” epithet, and Erdoğan has applauded at least one of his verbal attacks on journalists.”

CPJ said Turkish authorities had repeatedly charged journalists, news outlets, and social media users for insulting Erdoğan, insulting other Turkish leaders, and insulting “Turkishness” in general, adding: “Turkey is the world’s worst jailer of journalists, with at least 73 behind bars, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census on December 1, 2017.”

It also said in Egypt, 20 journalists were jailed at the time of CPJ’s latest prison census, while 18 were charged and convicted with anti-state crimes, such as helping, inciting terrorism or belonging to banned groups.

In Beijing, Mr. XPI increasingly stern grip by traditional censorship and internet controls to keep the news media in line, makes China one of the world’s worst jailers of the press, being the second worst globally, with at least 41 journalists in prison in 2017.

Under Mr. Putin, independent media had been all but eradicated, as journalists experienced threats of violence or imprisonment and other types of harassment.

CPJ also said that in Myanmar, most of the legal structure that had long restricted the press remained in place and journalists continued to be imprisoned. It added that security officials obstruct and harass journalists trying to cover what the UN has termed “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” by authorities in the country’s northern Rakhine State.

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