The president’s Fake News Awards are part of a growing and worrying trend of the administration undermining the media, which has inspired similar behavior across the globe, infer Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn of The LA Times. The consistent effort to diminish the public’s trust in the media hurts American democracy. Even worse, it has inspired leaders in more autocratic countries to do the same. From Syria to the Philippines, leaders have adopted the accusation of “fake news” to fight stories they don’t like. Trump used the Fake News Awards to further his own interests and ridicule his enemies in a highly destructive way.