ON JANUARY 17th Donald Trump will announce the inaugural winners of his “Fake News Awards”, presented to the “most biased and corrupt” organisation in America’s mainstream media. Since he took office nearly a year ago, Mr Trump has waged a war of words against what he perceives as unfair treatment by the news elite. His principal targets are the “failing” New York Times and “fake news” CNN.

A poll by Pew Research, a think-tank based in Washington, demonstrates how successful Mr Trump has been in souring his fans’ attitudes towards the press. For a number of years Pew has asked a representative sample of Americans whether news organisations’ criticism of political leaders primarily keeps them in check or, conversely, prevents them from doing their jobs. In 2016 Republicans and Democrats were in broad agreement: around 75% thought that criticism was constructive for a healthy government. But by last year Mr Trump had created a chasm in that sentiment: 90% of Democrats, but just 42% of Republicans, said that criticism by journalists of political leaders was useful. Republican voters are now more likely to disagree with Democratic voters about whether news reporting is biased. About nine-tenths of Republicans believe the news media favour one political party over the other, compared with just over half of Democrats.